


It's Not What It Looks Like

by Fallingfire



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, I'm Bad At Tagging, Mentor/Protégé, Ned Leeds is a Good Bro, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Precious Peter Parker, Tony Being Tony, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-06-27 10:58:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 35,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15684060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallingfire/pseuds/Fallingfire
Summary: “Before you yell at me, it gets worse.”“How could it possibly get worse?”“Hang on. Let me think of my response before I get back to you.”Peter needed mentoring and a lot of it. Tony decided that he was going to have to step into his role and become said mentor. He thought it was going to be pretty easy. But as it turns out, looking after a spiderchild seems to be way harder than anticipated. Especially when the kid is always finding the most ridiculous situations and throwing himself headfirst into them.So Tony was going to be that figure for him. Whether that meant mentor, cool uncle, older brother, or father, he was going to be there. Preferably not father, though.





	1. The First Step

Tony needed a drink. 

That was saying a lot too. He had gone anti-alcohol since getting back together with Pepper so the whole taking a drink thing was a no go. It had been a hard thing to adjust to right away, but in time, he adjusted. That was just the way humanity worked. Something needed to change, change was applied, eventually it ended up being like there was no change at all because it started becoming so normal. 

He hadn’t had an actual drink for almost an entire year now. It was actually impressive given his record. But god, how he really wish to have one right now. Just to loosen himself up. 

“Hey, FRI, what’s a common substitute for alcohol?”

“It would seem that many people drink pineapple, mango, or orange juice as an alternative to stay sober.”

Orange juice it was.

Tony dragged himself out of the lab to pour himself a glass of orange juice. And it was a big glass too. Like one of those venti size coffees from Starbucks. When he had his orange juice poured, he just stared at it for a little while. There was something about the color that reminded Tony of something he didn’t want to be reminded of. So perhaps it was a good thing that he couldn’t quite place what it reminded him of. With a quick glance at the clock, Tony let out a heavy sigh and slurped on his juice.

5:47.

He had a little less than two hours before he had to leave. Leave and explain to a poor woman why her freaking nephew was fighting crime as a superhero when he should be focusing on staying away from any and all danger. One hour and thirteen minutes until he needed to be there. One hour and thirteen minutes to kill. If Tony was smart, he would’ve thought of a speech or something to prepare when talking to her. Tony was never the best at speeches though. The best one he had was when he said _I am Iron Man_ and that had not been planned at all whatsoever.

That press conference had been the only time where he hadn’t followed the protocols laid out for him. Yet, it became one of the most memorable things about him. So, he was going to walk into this meeting without any protocols. No preparations, no speeches, no charming pick-up lines. Just him. Because honestly, he doubted that he would be welcomed with anything else.

May Parker was a woman to be trifled with. 

Now of course he knew that. He had figured that out the second he met her. She had obviously not liked him then, even if she did a good job at hiding it. And the thing about then was that she did just that. She hid her distaste towards him. There was no way that she would hold back on that now. May barely had on the phone call.

“We need to talk about this now! I don’t care how busy you are or what kind of techy messes you’re working on because this is my nephew we’re talking about! He’s going out there doing dangerous things and putting himself in dangerous situations without my knowledge, yet you are completely aware and totally fine with it?!”

That had been the tame part of the conversation.

Tony looked at the clock again. 

5:50

It had been an hour since the kid had left the compound. An hour since Tony announced to the world that he and Pepper were getting married because the kid had bailed. An hour since the kid had surprised both himself and Happy with that freakishly mature choice. One. Flipping. Hour. An entire sixty minutes. Peter had managed to keep his Spiderman secret safe for an entire sixty minutes since leaving the compound and saying he was going to stick to lower-grade tasks. Sixty minutes in and he already blew his cover to the one person he specifically did not want to know.

Tony took another sip of his juice.

God, this was not going to be fun.

It took Tony the entire hour to finish his glass. He obviously did not get anything done in that time except think about what he was going to say. Even though he told himself he would wing-it, his mind just unconsciously drifted there. FRIDAY’s alert saying that it was time for him to go was the only thing that snapped him out of his thoughts. Oh good, it was time for this mess to get started. 

The thing about messes was that Tony was really bad at cleaning them up. He usually made a bigger mess than what was already there to begin with. The chances of that happening at the Parker residence today was...not that high, actually. Technically, this was all Peter’s fault. It hadn’t been Tony who screwed up this time. But, you know, the universe didn’t give a shit so he was going to have to clean it up anyways and not half-ass it like he normally did. It was times like this that he wished deep down that he had paid some, tiny bit of attention to his dad when he was busting out words that made perfect sense and made people calm down whenever they were mad at him. That could’ve been the one useful skill he inherited from him. 

Just like now, though, the universe did not grant him that. 

Thirteen minutes to get to Queens was not a long time, Tony realized. And the only reason he did realize was that he had thirteen minutes to get somewhere that he needed to be on time and he was an hour away. _An hour._ This was just getting worse for him as the seconds passed. 

Thank god he had super fast cars or he would have no chance of getting there. Plus, he was Tony Stark, and Tony Stark did not deal with New York traffic like Happy did. Thirteen minutes still was nowhere near to enough time, but it was going to have to do tonight. 

Somehow he had reached his destination a minute early. Did he drive offroad and pull a bunch of Fast and the Furious bullshit on it? Yes, he did, but if anyone asked, he didn’t. All that mattered was that he was there and that he was not late. How in the hell was May Parker able to scare him into going somewhere on time was a question that was beyond Tony’s level of education. That had said enough in its own right.

He walked into the apartment sequence and made his way to the elevator to take him to a familiar floor with a familiar apartment. Well, the outside was familiar. Something told him that the inside wasn’t going to be the exact same as it had been last time. Last time he was inside was his first ever time being here and it had also been a really long time ago. Before Berlin. 

God, Berlin. May probably knew about that too, or at least expected something about it. 

_Just keep digging yourself a deeper hole, Tony._

Tony’s feet stopped outside of a door that he distinctly remembers as the door to the Parker household. He raised his hand to knock, only to pause for a second. This was a bad idea, this was such a bad idea. But he had to clean up the mess that he had a part in starting in the first place. Damn karma. Tony sighed before sucking in all that was left of his dignity and then knocked. He was surprised on how fast the door had opened. He was not surprised to see a very angry May Parker standing on the other side of the door, scowling daggers at him.

Ouch.

He walked into the apartment without asking and May had not even bothered telling him to. They both just expected it. Once he was in, May closed the door ridiculously softly with her anger and went further into the apartment. Tony followed without a word. It definitely was different in here. New furniture or something. May had stopped at the couch--the same couch that he had sat on before--and sat down without a word. Tony sat down next to her, trying to make eye contact.

Something about this scene was casual, maybe even relaxed. Not too long ago did they have a meeting in this exact same spot. Though that was on his accord. This was on May’s.

There was a lot more silence this time around.

“Alright, I’m here.” He instantly cringed at his words. That was not the right thing to say at this moment in time. “We can...start this thing now.”

So far, winging it was not working.

“Thank you for coming,” May said, her voice scarily calm. “I’m sorry for yelling at you over the phone. I was so mad when I called you that I couldn’t control myself.”

“You still seem mad.” Yeah, that also wasn’t a good thing to say either.

“Oh yes, I still am. But I’ve calmed down considerably since when I talked to Peter.”

Oh shit. 

Peter. 

Tony’s face must’ve given it all away. The next time he met May’s eyes he could see that they had lost a little bit of their fire in them. 

“He’s in his room, in case you were wondering.” Tony felt himself nod. 

The two sat in a dreadful silence for a few minutes. Tony was wondering if May was waiting for him to say something. If she was, she would be waiting a while. He had absolutely no idea on what to say to this--how to handle this. It was all so new to him. 

“You know, I should’ve seen it coming, honestly.” When May spoke, Tony snapped himself into full on listening mode. “All of the sneaking out should’ve been some kind of sign, a giveaway that there was something more going on here.” She let out a sigh that seemed to burn out the rest of the fire she had in her eyes. “It’s not something that I could just...think, you know? Peter’s never been like that. Like Spiderman. He’s always been so…”

“Pacifistic.” May nodded. “Yeah, I picked that up too. Maybe that’s why he does it, to make it so there’d be less fighting.” It was ironic in a way, but it made perfect sense. 

...Hold up, he snuck out?

“When did he start sneaking out?” May’s face seemed to light back up when he had asked that question.

“You didn’t know?”

Uh no, no he did not. He didn’t get the reports from the Baby Monitor Protocol until the week was done with and after that, he didn’t ever check the specific times when Peter was out Spidermanning. To be fair though, it did explain a freakish amount of stuff. Like why he was always calling Happy at night time when he should most definitely not be outside catching bad guys because it was _night time._ It also explained how the hell he found out about those weapons and the Vulture. Those guys only did that shit at night.

Wait…

He had been there that time. Well, his suit had been there. Guess he didn’t catch onto the time difference.

Oops.

“--that just makes everything worse. He was keeping stuff from you too and you’re the one who’s been giving him all this stuff and helping him out.” Shit, May had been talking and he had spaced out. Double oops. “God, you didn’t even know about it and this just makes everything worse--”

“May.” The woman stopped her unknowing self-rant and looked right at Tony. Crap, she was expecting something right now from him. “It’s alright. It’s fine. I’m not happy about it like you, but it’s totally normal.” He wasn’t one to talk since he always did bad stuff as a teenager, but he was, like, trying? “I don’t think he’s going to be sneaking out anymore or keeping anything from you.” Not when the whole reason he was sneaking out had been dealt with. 

“Ok...ok.” 

The uncomfortable silence returned. 

Tony was almost grateful for it if it wasn’t so tense. This was not a conversation he was expecting to have today. He was a little bit happy that they were having it, though. God, happy was not the right word to use, but he couldn’t think of any other words that would’ve been somewhat appropriate.

“May, I’m sorry about this.” He was starting it. “About keeping this Spiderman thing from you.” Boy, he was getting on a role now. “I was actually, believe it or not, going to tell you about it. Well, about some of it. Your little nephew is the one who stopped me from doing it. He didn’t want you freaking out, said it wouldn’t be a good time for you.” Now that he thought about it, the kid didn’t act like he had any plans to tell her.

Did that mean that he thought that it would never be a good time to tell her?

“I figured as much,” May admitted, to herself or Tony. “So, how long have you known?”

“Remember that first meeting we had, about the internship?” May nodded her head slowly. “About a week before that took place.” 

He was surprised that it took him as long as it did to figure it out. His identity had been the easy thing, he cracked that sucker in less than a day. It was all the extra stuff that took that week to learn. The extra stuff that led to Tony realizing that Spiderman was a crazy smart, fourteen-year-old kid that had an interest in science and only took care of muggings and stuff. AKA, the stuff that deemed him not a threat to the public whatsoever.

“A long time, then.” May sounded like she was talking to herself more than Tony. “He’s been Spiderman for that long, huh. I never really knew about the hero until the Washington Monument went down.” Wow, that probably only freaked her out more. “When you came to us, it wasn’t for a normal internship I’m guessing. It had something to do with Spiderman?” Tony could only nod. “And I’m guessing him asking for a passport involved that too?” Another nod. “God, that thing that happened in Germany with the Avengers...he was there with you, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.” May let out a large sigh. She looked so defeated, so tired. No matter how much he wanted to tell her that the whole situation had been done and over with and that nothing was traced back to Peter, he couldn’t. She was definitely freaking out about it. “He didn’t do anything, bad. He got hit once from Cap, at least that’s what he told me. I saw him go down one time and then I ordered him to stay down. He didn’t rejoin the fight, afterward.” Tony really hoped that was helping May out in some way.

“He had a black eye after he came back from that,” May said quietly, near whisper.

That had definitely been from Cap.

Let it go, Tony, let it go.

“May, listen. I did not want what happened in Berlin to happen at all. Should I have been expecting it, yes, I should’ve. I had no intention for your nephew to be fighting all of these guys--I didn’t want him to be. It came out as a last resort and even then it was his choice.” It really had been Peter’s choice. Tony wasn’t happy about it, but it happened. “Knowing something horrible could’ve happened doesn’t sit well with me, but it didn’t. He got out fine, I made sure of it even if it was my fault he was there anyways.”

God, something really bad could’ve happened there. 

“For everything that happened recently, I’m sorry too. I knew he was putting himself in all of this head first, charging in without thinking. He thought he could do more, stopping bigger guys and helping more people. I guess it was kinda my fault in the first place for putting that thought into his head. But even though I did not approve of him doing it, he still found a way to do it anyways. He is very crafty, your nephew. I told him to stick to the lower stuff and he didn’t listen. He went after these bigger, badder people and he got out of it fine. He saved the day.”

_I took his suit and he probably got way more hurt then what would’ve happened if he had it, but it's ok._

“The point I’m trying to make, I guess, is that he’s been doing this for a while. Before he met me. I guess I helped bring him into this superhero world and I regret it, I honestly do. Kids don’t need to be doing this. But, I am glad that I found him out. That I found him and gave him an upgrade to what he was using before because it was not the best crime-fighting material. I may have sucked-ass at keeping him out of harm, but I at least made it a bit safer for him. I hate that he’s been putting himself in harm's way, I really do, but we both know he would’ve been doing it anyways with or without my presence.”

Tony inhaled a deep breath. Damn, he had gotten a lot more out than he was expecting. He just let his thoughts take over for him, completely cutting May off from whatever she was going to say to him in the middle of all of that. The was the biggest non-staged monologue he’d ever had. 

“I’ve seen the videos,” May said after a while, or maybe right after he ended his speech. “What he was wearing before, I remember buying those pants at a thrift shop. He said they were for a school project. They weren’t...suitable for this.” She was looking right at him now. “Thank you, for doing your best to make sure he stays safe.”

Well this was taking an interesting turn. Tony was expecting her to yell at him, not thank him.

“I promise you that it isn’t going to stop there. Trust me, I figured out that he needs some serious attention when it comes to where he should be operating.” Peter really didn’t know what a grey area was. “He, uh,” god, he couldn’t believe he was saying this, “needs serious mentoring.” 

_And I’m going to give it to him._

To Tony’s surprise, May actually looked happy about that. Color him confused.

“He does,” she agreed. “If you’re going to do it like I assume you are--” That was definitely not a question. “--than I am going to have to discuss some ground rules with you.”

He wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

Tony didn’t even bother knocking on the kid’s door before entering. May didn’t tell him he needed to, so he just walked right in. What he saw was not what he was expecting by any means. First off, his room was completely different, more modern than what it had been before. Second, the kid was sitting on the ceiling near the window in his suit without his mask, looking straight at him with wide eyes.

“Ok, when May said you sneaked out I believed it. But this is just ludicrous.” He didn’t know whether or not to be mad or not at what he was seeing. “You literally were about to run off while I was in your house and you somehow thought that was a good idea?”

Peter dropped down from the ceiling so fast Tony didn’t have time to blink. He just stared at the kid, who was looking at him with his mouth hanging wide open.

“It’s not what it looks like.”

“Then what is it?”

“I was in my suit already! May had been right outside after I had it on and I forgot to close the door so then she started freaking out and I never had a chance to change my clothes before she told me to just stay in my room.” Tony had to admit, the kid talked impressively fast in one breath. “And I just happen to climb on the ceiling sometimes because it makes me less antsy.”

Tony noticed how fast the kid’s chest was rising and falling and couldn’t help but be a little bit concerned. It was going way too fast.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Calm down, deep breaths, I’m not overly pissed about it.” Now that he knew he wasn’t sneaking out, Tony wasn’t pissed at all. 

It took the kid a few minutes to calm himself down enough for Tony to take in his current appearance. He looked the same as he did earlier, just way redder. And no, it wasn’t the suit, but his face. His cheeks were almost the same shade as his freaking costume. 

Interesting...

“Congratulations, Underoos,” Tony couldn’t help but let out a smirk now. “You were successful at keeping your identity hidden for a good sixty minutes before blowing your cover to the only person you desperately wanted to keep it from.” 

If was even possible, the kid’s face turned redder. “Oh my god, Mr. Stark I’m so sorry. I didn’t plan on it happening, it just did. And then May started freaking out and then I brought you up and she just lost it and started calling you and now you’re here and I got you in trouble and I’m so sorry.” 

Yeah, damn he talked fast.

“You know at first I wasn’t that mad,” Tony lost his smirk now, “but you did get me in trouble didn’t you?” He was just toying with the kid, but Peter took it 100% seriously.

“Before you yell at me, it gets worse.”

“How could it possibly get worse?”

“Hang on. Let me think of my response before I get back to you.”

Peter needed mentoring and a lot of it. Tony decided that he was going to have to step into his role and become said mentor. He thought it was going to be pretty easy. But as it turns out, looking after a spiderchild seems to be way harder than anticipated. Especially when the kid is always finding the most ridiculous situations and throwing himself headfirst into them.

“Relax, kid. I’m not mad.” Not anymore. “I was just toying with you.” Peter barely seemed to relax even after he said it.

“I heard your conversation.”

“Oh?”

“With May.”

Oh.

“Not all of it, but quite a lot.” Peter’s voice was getting quieter as he spoke. “I’m really sorry that I didn’t listen to you.”

God, how much was this kid going to apologize for? He had said sorry at least five times now.

“Don’t sweat it, kid.” Peter perked up a tiny bit once he said it. “No matter how much you heard and how much you didn’t, it doesn’t matter. Your aunt and I had a talk, about you, which you probably knew already given your face.” Peter’s face turned even more red now. Great. “Nothing bad, nothing bad. We just set up some ground rules for the future. Rules that she’ll be going over with you tonight I’m guessing so I won’t have to Thursday.” 

Peter’s face went blank.

“Thursday?”

“Yeah.” Tony just stopped himself from saying anything else for a really long time. He enjoyed watching the gears in Peter’s head think as he tried to grasp some hidden meaning behind what he just said. “It’s part of what May and I talked about. You’ll be coming over to the compound every Thursday to be getting some mentor time with me. May also said that you’ll be coming over some weekends to get some proper internship stuff or whatever too, but we don’t know how frequently that’ll be.”

Tony glanced to look at Peter. The kid’s face was so bright he had to squint when looking at it. 

“Oh my god, Mr. Stark. Really?!”

Well, his mood was better.

“Uh, yeah?” Peter’s face looked so overjoyed that it caused a small smile to come out of Tony. Just a small one. “Don’t freak out about it, you’re gonna have to spend time with me after all.” Despite that sentence, Peter was hardly paying attention to the words.

“That’s so awesome! I get to come to the compound every week!” Tony was almost regretting telling the kid now. It was like he went in hyperactive mode. “Oh my god, Ned’s gonna be so jealous. Wait, how did you get May to agree with you on that? She doesn’t really like you, she told me. I’m not complaining, just very curious. And how are you not dead or scarred by talking to her? She get’s super scary--”

“Kid.”

“--when you make her angry so the fact that you’re completely fine is weird. There wasn’t any yelling either which just isn’t fair because when she saw me she was yelling so loud that the neighbors had to come over to make sure we weren’t getting robbed or something--”

“Kid!”

Peter stopped his word vomit just like that. He looked up at Tony and felt himself freeze.

“Sorry, I talk a lot sometimes.” 

That seemed like an understatement. 

“Look, kid. Your aunt and I came to an understanding. She’s the one who wants you to be at the compound so you can learn responsibility and all that jazz.” Oh lord, he was going to have to start being responsible. “I cannot explain her actions towards me, but based on what you said, I’m glad she went easy on me.” Seriously, thank goodness. “If you want the full details, you gotta hit up your aunt yourself.” 

With that, Tony went to leave the room so that Peter could get his long list of rules.

“Wait, Mr. Stark?”

He paused right at the door, turning around to face the spiderling. “Yeah?”

“Uh, see you Thursday.”

Tony left the Parker residence with a good feeling in his chest. He didn’t know why he wasn’t used to ever having such a feeling. Not unless he was with Pepper or Rhodey, but even then the feeling had been slightly different. He drove home in silence and at a slower rate than he had earlier. His brain was going crazy trying to process all of the information.

He was a mentor now. Well, not now, he already had been before but he just sucked. Now he was actually going to be mentoring. He was going to have to take responsibility. There was going to be a young child at his side every Thursday now, looking up to him constantly. 

That was so scary. Tony didn’t want to mess Peter up, but Peter didn’t have anyone else that could help him out in the superhero department. They were stuck with each other. While Peter seemed over the moon about that, Tony was hesitant.

He was gonna have to get his act together. Today was Tuesday, Thursday was two days from now.

When Tony got back to the compound he went straight to bed. It didn’t matter that it was only 7:21. He was beyond tired and something told him he was going to need his sleep for the preparing trial ahead of him. He went to sleep with an empty mind--his first ever--and slept peacefully for the first time in a long while. It was only when a sudden thought appeared in his head did Tony wake up.

_Who the hell was Ned?_


	2. Getting to Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “...How often do you people watch?” 
> 
> The question was so random and Peter had asked out of nowhere that Mr. Stark’s reaction was to be expected. He looked up from his phone, staring off into space in deep thought, and then meeting Peter’s gaze.
> 
> “What?”
> 
> “How often do you people watch?” 
> 
> “Uh…” Mr. Stark, bless his soul, looked so confused. He still chose to answer, though. “Twice a week at the least.”
> 
> “Seriously? You actually people watch?”
> 
>  
> 
> “Kid, why would you ask me a question if you didn’t expect me to have something to do with it?” Fair point. “Why did you ask me that?”

Thursday had came way too slowly.

At least, it had in Peter’s mind. More than anything in the world did he want to go to Avengers Compound again. Not just because it was really freaking awesome to look at--which it so was--it was a really awesome place to be inside of. The first and only time Peter had been there he was just too focused on listening to Mr. Stark that he didn’t even really process where he had been until hours afterward. Like, hours after he had came to see him that day hours.

This next time, Peter knew--he knew--that he is probably going to freak out. At least a little bit. He really didn’t want to make himself look like an idiot, but he literally already had numerous occasions before. Just not in front of the man he looks up to. 

Peter had told himself that it was that fact alone that made him not lose his mind at the Avengers Compound during that whole test thing. It had made sense at the time. But now that he has had time to process it, Peter knows that he was trying not to screw up like he always seemed to do. On every occasion ever that involved Tony Stark, also. That was just a really bad coincidence. So, yeah, he tried to not look like a doofus while talking to Iron Man that day.

Too bad that he got caught by May an hour later.

“Dude, May knows?”

Peter doesn’t really have any reason for not telling Ned what went down the day he left Decathlon practice early. He just kinda did it. Which was mainly why his best friend was getting all of the info on the big day itself: Thursday.

“Yeah.”

“Was, she like, freaked out?” So far, Ned hasn’t really asked anything yet. It might’ve had something to do with the fact that Peter told him about May finding out who he was a minute before, but still. Surprising in Ned’s case.

“Dude, what do you think?” They both knew the answer to Ned’s question. “She flipped! I only saw her that mad one other time I think.” 

He remembers the memory clearly. It was when he had just gotten into middle school and Ben decided to test out some of May’s Herb Recipes from this weird cookbook and he ended up setting half the kitchen on fire. She yelled so loud that it was a miracle that Canada didn’t hear her.

Needless to say, Peter did not come out of his room that night.

“Ok, yeah I can see that. What happened, though? Did she just let you be?” Ned’s voice was getting louder as he talked. School hadn’t even started yet, so everyone was too focused on their own conversation to be listening to theirs. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Yeah, so...she called Mr. Stark.”

“TONY--” Peter shot Ned a glance that caused him to lower his voice freakishly fast. “--Stark?!” The look on his face was of pure...well, actually Peter couldn’t tell. It looked like excitement mixed with bewilderment. And a little bit of questioning. “How--what happened with that?”

It took Peter the rest of the day to explain everything to Ned. Ned was a good listening which made it easier, it was just the stupid classes. They seemed to get in the way of everything lately. He was one of the few students that constantly did his work in class, though, so maybe he was finally catching the _I’m allergic to homework_ Bug. Ned had found every opportunity he could to ask Peter about what had happened and everything that went down. And of course, Ned found it freaking awesome that Peter was going to be at Avengers Compound everything Thursday. Not that Peter was surprised in the least by his friend’s reaction. 

It was Ned, of course he was freaking out. 

That didn’t stop the slight amusement that Peter felt whenever Ned’s face lit up when he told him about anything. Especially the Avengers Test. 

Ned really didn’t get too overly freaked out when Peter told him the list of rules he had to follow from now on, though. Other than the fact that he was given the rules by none other than Tony Stark himself.

Honestly, Peter didn’t remember all of the rules. He had most down, or at least in his mind. 

There was a long list of them, from what May had said anyways. So long that Mr. Stark was going to email her the full thing. What she had explained to him seemed basic enough for what he could and could not do. 

Could Do:  
Patrol after school  
Stay out till ten at night  
Web guys up  
Stick to lower level crimes  
Report back after every mission

Peter was pretty sure that last one was mandatory. Well, the last one on the list of things he remembered.

Could Not Do:  
Patrol after decathlon practice  
Put Spiderman before school  
Jump into higher level stuff  
Get involved in anything that would deal with higher-ups--whatever that meant  
Tell anybody about real identity  
Give away any secret info--define secret  
Fight using Spider powers as PP unless life is in serious danger or someone tries to--quoting Mr. Stark-- _Steal the Spiderling_  
Get cocky

Peter couldn’t even begin to take that last one seriously. He also didn’t know why he bothered to remember that one out of the giant list. Maybe because it was just so ridiculous. 

Thinking on all of them now, he became aware of how he had already broken one of those rules. With Ned. He had been given him all of this information without a second thought. But, was all of this _secret_ information? Did it qualify as that? It was literally just rules. Even if it didn’t, he did kinda reveal himself in front of Ned. That broke a rule.

But it also happened before the rules so...

Doesn’t count.

When sixth period hit, the weight of what was going to be happening after the bell rang came crashing down on him. All at once. He wasn’t sure why all the sudden he began to freak out about it. Except for, maybe, the fact that he was going to have to spend the entirety of the rest of his day with Mr. Stark. _Have to_ , jeez, he made it sound awful. It hadn’t even happened yet and that wasn’t even the point! Peter was happy to be doing that, maybe a little too much. 

Maybe so much so that he was starting to freak out because now he was spending every Thursday with Mr. Stark AKA Iron Man. He was going to make himself look like a giant idiot. Granted, it was probably way too generous a thought to think that Mr. Stark didn’t already think of him as a little weird. While not idiot yet, it surely would turn there someday. Someday real soon.

Possibly even today. 

_God, what happens when he finds out I’m such a loser? He’s gonna rethink everything._

They didn’t even know each other. This was probably going to be super uncomfortable for Mr. Stark. He didn’t seem like he really, uh, liked spending lots of time with people, from what Peter gathered from Happy the very few times they’ve communicated with each other.

Speaking of Happy...

A small ping from his phone caused Peter to flash his attention to the device almost instantaneously.

_Not-so Happy Hogan: I’m going to be waiting outside of your school for you. Come out as soon as it’s over. In a black Nissan._

Peter stared at the text for a long time. Happy was here? In a Nissan? Why--oh, right. Duh. Something about the fact that Happy was waiting outside of his high school possibly right now was strange. Happy never did that, but now he probably was going to be doing it every Thursday. Because every Thursday he was going to go to the compound.

He might still be processing it a little bit.

Happy was going to be waiting a long time if he was out there right now. Each class was an hour long and his last one just started five minutes prior to the text. He probably didn’t know what time they got out. Not that it wasn’t any different from other New York high schools, but Peter doubted Happy just had that knowledge. Why would he have so much info on high schools?

Wait...after school. Peter had decathlon after school today and...

No, he didn’t. Thursday never had practice.

_That’s why May chose Thursday._

He was going to have to thank her later. The remaining of sixth period went by surprisingly fast. Faster than what the beginning of the day had been passing by, or the past two days. Day and a half, technically. Once the last bell rang, Peter didn’t even register getting up. It wasn’t until he was talking to Ned, completely normally, that he realized his body had been acting without its mind for quite a while. The stress must’ve been catching up with him. 

“You gotta tell me everything tomorrow,” Ned said as they walked near the exit of the building. “Everything, don’t leave out any details.”

“Wow, pressure much. Now I gotta look at everything.”

“Like you won’t be doing that anyways.”

“I have been there before.” And he had looked at everything he saw, but he hadn’t really been looking looking at everything. 

“Everything.”

“Ok, ok. I promise I will look at everything to the point where I memorize it.”

Ned seemed pretty pleased with that. The two said their goodbyes as Ned walked in the opposite direction of Peter. And Peter, Peter was just looking for where Happy would be. He looked out from the entrance of the school and glanced around. There were no black Nissans outside. 

“What the heck, Happy...”

_Peter Parker: Where are you_

_No-so Happy Hogan: Right outside the entrance to your school._

Peter looked around the parking area outside again. Nope, he definitely was not out here. 

_Peter Parker: Um I don’t see you_

_Peter Parker: Are you sure you’re at the right school_

_Not-so Happy Hogan: Did you seriously just ask me if I’m at the right school? I’m not Tony, I actually know where my destination is._

Fair enough.

_Peter Parker: Then why can’t I see you_

_Peter Parker: Wait_

_Peter Parker: Which entrance are you at_

The thing about high schools was that there was always more than one entrance. And not just the little doors that led outside of the gym or those random ones right by the stairs or something. There was always two main entrances. Peter wouldn’t have thought so until they had a debate about it in the middle of English. A freaking _debate._

Something told Peter that Happy was not at the entrance he was at.

_Not-so Happy Hogan: What do you mean what entrance? I’m at the one with the flagpole in front of it. Are you saying there’s more than one?_

Peter didn’t even bother to hold back his groan. Yep, he was at the wrong entrance. Or did that make Peter at the wrong entrance? Happy was way above his level of pay--he didn’t get paid what was he talking about--so that meant that Peter had screwed up and not Happy. How was Happy even supposed to know about two entrances and which one Peter would be at? 

_Peter Parker: Nothing. I’m comin_

So far, day one was going great.

 

Thank god for car rides. They required no energy whatsoever--unless you were driving--and you were sitting down the whole time. Seriously, way better than walking home from school.

Peter didn’t really ever walk home from school, though. There was always patrolling and that always made him sore. Sad thing was it was almost always his fault. The range of soreness causes ranged from tripping on a drain to forgetting to attach a web to a building at the right moment. The latter being way more painful, but actually not that painful. 

A solid four on the pain meter.

Normally, he would’ve been chatting Happy’s ear off. Whether it was because he wanted to chat or just to slightly annoy him, it didn’t matter. He seemed to annoy him plenty enough just as from what he gathered. Peter hadn’t been in a car much with Happy, but being on the airplane and being right next door to him in Berlin had given him plenty of opportunities to talk to him. That alone gave Peter the impression that Happy didn’t like being talked to, but he still did it anyway. Today, he was a bit more held back. For a more, unique reason, though.

Happy actually seemed...happy. Well, not happy. More like he was mildly content with life. 

It was strange. Granted, Peter hadn’t seen much of Happy really at all, but from whenever he did see him he always seemed on edge or grumpy. All the time. In fact, it was like a mixture of the two. Right now, he looked a bit relaxed. As to why, Peter really wanted to know, but didn’t ask.

The hour drive to the compound went by fast compared to the rest of the day. Most likely it was because Peter’s mind had been occupied with thoughts on what could be making Happy’s day the whole ride there. He came up with quite the list that was definitely nowhere near anything close, but it was still entertaining. For his brain, at the very least.

The compound was the exact same as it had been two days prior. But that made sense; it had only been two days. If there was any difference, Peter would have to say that it was less...full. There weren’t as many vehicles parked outside. That was about it. Happy drove up to a different area than he had on Tuesday. It looked more like a garage with all the cars parked inside. After he parked the car and got out, Peter copied. He followed him inside the compound like a lost puppy. Mainly because he was.

This was a completely different area, Peter realized as the entered. Just like school, different entrances go to different places. Who would’ve thought? 

This area looked more private in all honesty. More laid back, less professional. Yet, still equally impressive as everything else. 

Happy walked through the place like he knew where he was going--which made sense--but his walk was somewhat speedy. It reminded Peter of people on Black Friday trying to get to the front of the lines, or Ned’s mom at Costco. Happy was walking fast like he had places to be but couldn’t go there until he accomplished his mission. His feet were going and his arms were barely swinging at his sides, almost looking as if they were propelling him forward. A classic Costco mom walk.

It almost made Peter laugh looking at him. But that would’ve been totally unprofessional.

Happy’s sudden stop nearly caused Peter to run right into him. He didn’t, though, thank god. That would probably not have been the best thing to do. Even unintentionally. He stopped by what appeared to be an elevator. But like, a big one.

“Ok, this is where I fill your brain with instructions and you pay attention.” Happy gave Peter a look as he nodded his head. “Almost always when you get here, you’ll be going in through the entrance we came into today. From there you’ll make your way here to this elevator,” Happy gestured to the thing he stopped in front of while Peter did his best to focus. “This isn’t as tall as a building as the Tower, so you should remember which floor you need to go to. Top. Got it?”

“Got it.” Top floor, made sense. Peter would have to guess there was only about five floors to this building, if even.

“Great. In order to get up there, you’ll need special clearance.” Happy seemed to ignore the way Peter’s eyes flashed as he held out a badge for him. “This is your security badge. It shows what access to the building you have. Should you enter through the other entrance, you’ll need it to get up here. Do not lose it.”

Peter took the badge in his hands and looked down at it. It looked really boring. The color was plain white and it had a very slight grey Avengers symbol in the middle. 

“You only need to scan the badge if you enter on the first floor. The rest of the time, it’ll be automatically scanned upon entry so you have to always have it on your person if you’re here. Understand?” Peter nodded his head, turning his gaze away from the badge. “Great.” Happy clicked the up button on the side of the elevator and waited for it to open. “Top floor, remember. Always top floor.”

“You’re not going with?” The second he asked that Peter felt incredibly stupid.

“No. Contrary to Tony’s belief, I’m not waiting for him to give me a job 24/7.” Peter would’ve laughed if he wasn’t too busy thinking. “Don’t freak yourself out about it.” All Peter could do was nod as he stepped into the elevator. “I’ll drive you home when you guys are done.” Another nod and then Peter pressed the highest number floor he saw before the door closed.

Floor four.

Peter stood alone in the elevator for a couple of seconds before the door opened. He blinked twice before stepping out of the elevator, the doors closing seconds afterward. Peter barely even noticed. Floor four--top floor--was was cool. Not only was it flipping gigantic, but it was so neat looking. Nice and clean, everything looking like it belonged right where it was. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that this was the Avengers area of the Avengers Compound. Everything that Peter could see resembled living items.

_Furniture, Peter, not living items._

The furniture looks super expensive. Just the way it sat made Peter’s mind scream money. Of course, the Avengers had nice, expensive stuff. They were the Avengers, c’mon man. Peter knew he should probably move away from the door, but he couldn’t bring himself to. What if he damaged something. Or you know, broke the floor? He couldn’t hide a broken floor.

“Welcome, Mr. Parker.”

Peter swears he didn’t jump when he heard that voice. Not that high anyways. “Hello?”

“Hello.”

Ok, this was weird. Peter took a few steps from his perch and looked around the floor. He couldn’t see anybody, but he knows he heard a voice. He continued to slowly make his way further in, trying to find who spoke to him. It had sounded like a female voice.

“...Um, where are you?” He felt like he was asking the air that question.

“I’m all around you.” 

Yeah, no.

“What?”

“I’m FRIDAY, the AI that Boss created to replace that known as JARVIS. I keep tabs on the compound.” 

Oh. An AI. Artificial intelligence. Peter felt so stupid now. Of course it would be an AI, why would it be anything else? “So...you’re like Karen?” There was a slight pause.

For a second, Peter thought he broke it.

“I am not familiar with Karen, but if I were to look back into your database, it would seem that you call your suit’s AI by that name. If you mean that Karen, then yes.” 

Peter wasn’t gonna lie, this was pretty awesome. A little freaky, but still awesome. Peter should’ve known that Mr. Stark would have an AI. He gave Peter his own to keep tabs on him, so it made sense that he would have his own keeping tabs on his own stuff. Peter was definitely going to check out some stuff with Karen later.

“So, FRIDAY--” God, this was surreal. “--what should I be doing?” He really had no clue as to what he was supposed to do. Was he supposed to be doing anything?

“You’ve been given all access, therefore you can do whatever you want.” 

Peter highly doubted that. “Ok.” What should he do, though? He couldn’t really do much without fear of damaging anything. He had a knack for doing that a little more often than he should. “Can you tell me about...yourself?” 

“Well, when it comes to this facility I keep track of who enters and who exits. I am in all of the databases in the compound, so I can be monitoring multiple things at once. I mostly keep tabs on whatever Boss wants, and even some stuff he doesn’t want me to keep tabs on.” His own AI was going rogue on him? “When it comes to you, I will always be alerted when you enter the building.”

Oh wow. That was almost creepy in a way.

“Do you inform Mr. Stark when I get here?”

“I am programmed not to unless you don’t go straight to where Boss is.” Well, that seemed like it was going to be difficult.

“Where is Mr. Stark?” 

“Heading towards you.”

Oh crap. Peter hadn’t realized that when FRIDAY meant straight to where Mr. Stark was that she wasn’t just talking about going to a different area. She just meant not going to where he was first thing in general. 

Peter didn’t really have any time to think before Mr. Stark was standing in front of him. He hadn’t even noticed he was there until the man snapped a finger in his face. Great, he spaced out. 

“Earth to Spidey?”

It took all of Peter’s willpower to not slap the hand in front of his face away on instinct. Instead, he just blinked cluelessly. “Uh, yeah?”

“What are you doing staring off into space?”

“...Nothin.” Peter didn’t even believe the answer he gave. He felt his face turn right after he said it. He had been thinking, which wasn’t nothing. To be fair, he was thinking about nothing important...

“Yeah, ok. Sure.” Mr. Stark didn’t seem to believe him either. He didn’t press it, though. He probably didn’t really care all that much. Why would he? “I’m assuming Happy gave you his little badge protocol talking?” Peter only nodded his head, fresh confusion still dawning his face. He wasn’t even sure why. “Great. Whatever he said to you about a badge, I recommend you follow it. He is a real stickler about badges.”

Peter hummed in amusement. He could totally see that. 

What happened next zoomed past like it was straight out of a movie on fast forward. Mr. Stark basically gave Peter a tour of the floor. Which was absolutely amazing. Although he was on orders from Ned to observe everything and anything he could, Peter didn’t process anything he looked at. Not really. All that he knew was that everything looked like an awesome penthouse for superheroes, which it basically was. Peter does remember the lab that Mr. Stark showed him. Clear as crystal. He swears he didn’t freak out at all--on the outside.

The tour seemed to go by faster than what it had taken up. In reality, it had been a long tour, nearly taking up all of the time they had that day. Admittedly, it was probably because Peter was gawking at everything. Mr. Stark hadn’t seemed annoyed or even irritated when he asked anything or stared dreamingly at things. In fact, Peter would say he had looked amused.

Currently, the two of them were just sitting on the couch, waiting. Based on Mr. Stark’s face, he didn’t know what they were waiting for. But, uh, neither did he, so they were even. 

It was just slightly awkward.

“...How often do you people watch?” 

The question was so random and Peter had asked out of nowhere that Mr. Stark’s reaction was to be expected. He looked up from his phone, staring off into space in deep thought, and then meeting Peter’s gaze.

“What?”

“How often do you people watch?” 

“Uh…” Mr. Stark, bless his soul, looked so confused. He still chose to answer, though. “Twice a week at the least.”

“Seriously? You actually people watch?”

“Kid, why would you ask me a question if you didn’t expect me to have something to do with it?” Fair point. “Why did you ask me that?”

“To get to know you. You ask questions to people in order to get to know them better.” Peter wasn’t sure why he chose _that_ question to start with but, eh. It could’ve been worse. “I just figured, we don’t really know each other that well and we’re gonna be spending a lot of time together. It’s good for team bonding, someone asks one question, everybody answers, and then someone else asks a question. We do it for decathlon and on the first day of school, but that one is way different because you have to guess certain things about people and it gets super creepy...” The teenager stopped his talking when he caught Mr. Stark’s gaze. He was staring right at him. “Oh, uh, sorry.”

“For what?”

“For uh...nevermind.” As if rambling wasn’t embarrassing enough. Doing it while in the presence of Tony Stark was even worse. “But, anyways, we have time to kill so we can get to know each other. So, I think it’s a good idea.”

The look on Mr. Stark’s face stayed the same. Completely stoic. It left Peter silently wondering if he had done something wrong. Crossed the _not there yet_ line or something.

“...Ok, what do you got?” 

Peter almost didn’t hear the question the first time around. Luckily, his brain repeated it for him. He wasn’t expecting Mr. Stark to be so ok with it. Why would he be, but also, why wouldn’t he be? It was an awkward area where you just didn’t know which side would swing. In this case, Mr. Stark chose to swing on the let’s do it side instead of the let’s not do it one.

“Um, let me think…” There was a whole bunch of questions that he could ask. It just came to what was important and what was appropriate. “What’s the worst thing about getting older?” Or, you know, he could just ask what his brain came up with. That was good too.

“...God.” Mr. Stark’s face scrunched up as he thought about it. “Seeing the numbers of my age go up on my Wikipedia page.” Peter heard himself snort. There was a few minutes of silence that caused Peter to shift a bit after the answer.

“Ok, now you have to ask a question.”

“Yeah, I got that.” Peter felt his face heat up. “What mistake do you keep on making?”

Oh jeez. “Uh--”

“‘Cause I would say it’s giving away your secret identity.” Peter froze.

What.

“Wait...what?” Mr. Stark didn’t say anything. He just gave Peter a look that made Peter think that he knew about more than May, but Ned also. To be fair, he had blabbed his name out two days ago when he was going on and on. Based on his face, Mr. Stark did not look like he was going to elaborate. “Um...ok, what’s the dullest memory you have?”

“This conversation.” He said it so seriously that Peter almost believed him. The smirk on his face gave him away.

“Mr. Stark, come on. You gotta take this seriously.” He really didn’t, but he could pretend. “This is a safe and non-judgemental environment, you have to be honest with your answers.” Hearing Mr. Stark snort after he said that did not boost his confidence.

“Safe and non-judgemental environment? What are you, a therapist?” Peter glared at the man who was laughing at him. “God, fine, fine. Ok, I’m ready to actually do this.” The man set down his phone on the table to prove his point. “But nothing deeply personal. We’re not there yet.”

Fair enough.

“What’s your favorite color?”

Based on the way Mr. Stark’s face dropped, Peter assumed that he was a little surprised by that question. Out of all of them, he was most likely not expecting that one. 

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

The room went quiet again. Mr. Stark let out a sigh and pursed his lips together. It looked like he didn’t even know what his favorite color was. Peter guessed it was either red or gold, based on his Iron Man suit. It made logical sense.

“Gold,” he finally answered. “What’s yours?”

“Purple.” Mr. Stark’s face drew back dramatically after his answer. “What?”

“I didn’t take you for a purple guy. I thought you would be more of a red guy with your suit.”

“Well, what about you? You wear red too!” 

Mr. Stark made a scoffing noise.

“Why is purple your favorite color?”

“You’re dodging the question,” Peter pointed out rather stubbornly. “And does it matter why it’s my favorite color?” Mr. Stark gave Peter another look which caused the teen to sigh. “It was the color theme of my parent’s wedding.” He knew enough from the pictures. In truth, it was also the first color that Peter really saw growing up, so that was a factor too. “Why do you like gold?”

“Because it represents wealth.” Peter didn’t expect anything else. “Why is your color scheme red and blue? Because it makes purple?”

“No, it's the color of the spider that I...saw before I got my powers.” Mr. Stark gave Peter a weird look at that horrible save. He hadn’t told him about the spider bite yet. Oops. “But oh my god that could totally be why. The red and blue make purple. That’s great!” Mr. Stark let out some sort of noise that Peter didn’t know. “Why is your color scheme red and gold?”

“Gold makes it very flashy.” 

“And the red?”

“That’s just from the stain of the blood of my enemies.” Peter’s face dropped instantly. The look in his eyes was of pure horror and disgust. “I’m kidding, don’t take it seriously. It made me stand out.” The man seemed to be amused, even if he looked completely emotionless. “What’s the dumbest thing you’re afraid of?”

Peter hesitated. It didn’t go unnoticed by Mr. Stark. He had to think deeply about that one. There was a sad amount of things that Peter was afraid of. A lot of those things were pretty childish and dumb, hence needles and the dark. He didn’t know right off the bat what the dumbest thing was. Not right off the bat.

“Well?”

“Hmm...lily pads.” 

The silence that followed afterwards was deafening, but for a completely different reason than anticipated. 

“...Why are you afraid of lily pads?”

“Uh, well you can’t see under the water with them floating on top.”

“Kid, you live in New York. When have you ever seen a lily pad?”

“On vacation. There was a whole bunch at this lake we were at and they were all gross and slimy. And I never really learned how to properly swim so I got out a really long ways and then those dreaded things were floating on top and I couldn't see the bottom so I began to freak out. Then there was a fish that jumped out and that was way bad--”

“Ok, I understand your point. You got freaked out by lily pads as a kid and now you’re scarred for life.” 

Peter nodded. He wasn’t about to say that it had only been two years ago when he went to that lake. Mr. Stark did not need to know how pathetic of a pre-teen he was.

“What’s the dumbest thing you’re afraid of?” Peter noticed that they had fallen into a pattern. Mr. Stark would ask the question, Peter would answer, then repeat it and Mr. Stark would answer. They must’ve started it unintentionally.

Mr. Stark had hesitated before he answered too. It seemed to be in order to let out a sigh instead of thinking, however.

“Ugh, ok, no judging, alright?” Peter felt himself nod swiftly. “My dumbest fear is that I’m afraid of...god.” Mr. Stark made multiple attempts to tell Peter what he was afraid of only to stop right before he said it. The process was only causing Peter to want to know even more. “Balloons popping.”

The words came in slowly.

Balloons popping...balloons popping. Mr. Stark, Tony Freaking Stark, was afraid of balloons popping? Actually?

There was a guilty feeling in his chest when Peter heard himself begin to laugh. 

“Balloons? Really?!” He started to laugh loudly now. Each time his brain came over the thought it just increased in how funny it was. 

“Hey! This is a judge-free zone. You said that yourself!” Tony quipped.

“Why are you afraid of that?” Peter asked after his laughing calmed down. 

“So, I’m assuming you know what an Escape Room is?” He did, he’d been in one before with Ned. They had gotten pretty close to getting out before the time ran out. “Well, it was when I was in college. Back then, the escape rooms were really dumb and honestly not the best. I had gone to one with a group of college kids and we had to get out within thirty minutes. Thing was, it was Halloween time, so we were doing this in the dark. When we managed to get out, it was into a whole room of balloons that were constantly being popped. It sounded like gunshots to my youthful ears, which is pretty dumb now because a balloon popping and gunshot doesn’t sound remotely alike, but whatever.” Mr. Stark paused and looked at Peter. “My story isn’t as entertaining as yours.”

Even though his mentor said it, Peter didn’t believe a word of it. That was the most interesting thing he had ever heard. Even more interesting than the stories May would tell of what she did in her younger days as a college student.

Before Peter could say anything to reply to Mr. Stark, there was a pinging noise coming from his phone. It was a text. From Happy.

“Time to go?” Mr. Stark asked, to which Peter nodded. “Alright, Underoos. Get outta here.”

“Wow, don’t sound so upset about it,” Peter teased as he stood up and made his way to the door. “Hey, next time I’m here, we’re doing more questions.”

“Whatever you say.”

It was meant to be a sarcastic remark. Nothing more. Sure enough though, next Thursday, the two did even more question exchanges. And then the next week they did it again. By the time that Peter had reached the five-week mark on coming to the compound, the two knew a considerable amount about each other. 

Tony had told the kid things that only Rhodey or Pepper knew about. Even some things that just Happy knew about or that none of them knew. And in return for that, Peter had told him so much about himself. Little things and big things.

He tried to make it seem like he was surprised to hear the kid talk about his hobbies or dive into what some of his powers were. The kid seemed to think that he was hearing a lot of this stuff for the first time. Which, he honestly was, but there was a lot of stuff that Tony already knew about Peter. Like how he got into Midtown on an academic scholarship, or how he spoke a surprising amount of Italian. Like how his parents died when he was so young, something that hit Tony personally.

The point being, he had gotten to know the kid pretty well. Well enough that he knew what made him geek out and that he had a lot of word vomit. Seriously, he could say one thing and the kid could go on for hours.

When it came to the first weekend that Peter was going to be staying over, Tony was less nervous than he expected to be. Less nervous than what he had been when he had decided to dive into mentor mode. He felt comfortable around Peter, like he could be around him and feel normal. Normal, something he hadn’t felt in a long time. The kid made him forget about the shitshow he was still in with Ross and everything with Cap and focus on what was happening right then and there.

It was refreshing.

They had finally decided to get past the whole asking questions thing. That at least gave Tony a chance to not have to constantly think. But he still did it anyways. Instead, Tony and Peter spent time in the lab. The kid was too starstruck to really touch anything, but that was fine. He was pretty good at listening to whatever Tony had said to him. 

Now Tony wasn’t ever really the best at sleeping. He didn’t seem to get as many hours in as he probably should be getting. Coffee was the only thing keeping him from crashing and burning. Because of his terrible timing, it took FRIDAY to alert both him and Peter that it was one in the morning and they should probably sleep. By they, he meant Peter. 

To his surprise, the kid had went straight to sleep after Tony showed him his room. Based on how wound up he’d been barely five minutes before, it was a little shocking. He didn’t think anything of it, though, since teenagers need a lot of sleep. It was a normal thing. Tony had gone back to the lab to work away the rest of the night, or early morning. To be honest, time passed slower now that he didn’t have a companion at his side asking a bunch of things while trying to hide his inner fanboy. But the slowness allowed Tony to feel like he was getting stuff done. Which was great.

Yeah, everything was great.

Until he heard a very loud and unmanly scream at eight in the morning. 

It sent such a chill through Tony that he fell right out of his chair. What the hell? Tony stood up and rubbed his face, wondering what the hell had screamed. 

“FRIDAY, what...” It hit him all at once. The kid.

“It would appear that Mr. Parker is currently in distress.”

Shit.

Tony didn’t acknowledge the building panic rising inside of him as he practically burst out of the lab. “Where is he?”

“The living area.”

Oh, so he was close.

He tried not to think about what would be causing the kid to scream like he was getting murdered. Hopefully, he wasn’t _getting_ murdered. Tony wasn’t sure how he would react if he walked in on the kid getting stabbed to death in his goddamn compound. And while he was on that, what the hell was in here? It was the Avengers Compound, it wasn’t easy to just break into!

Walking into Peter standing on the kitchen counter with a look of pure horror was automatically better than what he was already expecting. Especially since there was nothing there that opposed a threat.

“What are you doing?” He asked, his mind just now processing that the kid was on the counter. “Get off of there. What are you, an animal?” Tony went over to Peter and tried pulling him down. Too bad the kid stuck right to it.

“Wait, Mr. Stark don’t!”

“Why?” He asked, trying to pull again.

“Because there’s a bad--” Peter’s voice cracked and it was enough for his concentration to get thrown off. Tony practically yanked the kid off the counter when that happened. The second his feet hit the ground, Peter let out a loud shriek.

“My god, what?!”

He never really got much of an answer. Instead, he got a teenager jumping on top of him and wrapping his feet around his torso like he was a goddamn sloth. Peter looked like he was an average teenager, but damn was his grip strong. Tony tried hard not to fall over when Peter was on him.

“Th-there’s a really ba-d thing on the floor!” The kid was pointing at something behind the counter. “I-it’s real bad!”

Tony did his best to ignore the sudden stutter in the kid’s voice as he looked to where he was pointing at. Deciding to check it out, he began to make his way behind the counter, earning a fearful shout from his unwanted passenger.

“Mr. Stark no!” The teenager did his best to steer his driver away from that direction, but Tony was determined.

He walked behind the counter, eyes ready to see whatever had spooked this kid enough to cling to him like he was the safe spot in a game of tag. His mind mentally prepared himself for something really bad, like a bomb or something. How it would be a bomb, he didn’t know, but that’s what he was assuming. Instead of finding a bomb, however, Tony only found a small spider sitting on the floor, just minding its own business.

_Oh come on._

“Why?” That was the only thing that he was able to release from his mouth. Not only because it was the only thing he could think of to say, but also because the kid’s arms were wrapped so tightly around him that he didn’t think he could muster much else. He seemed to crawl even higher on him. 

“Mr. Stark we’re too close!” Tony walked even closer to the little insect. “Oh my god, stop!”

“Are you scared of spiders?” Now Tony felt a smirk grow on his face as he felt the kid’s head nod fast. “So, I’m assuming you don’t like being near them?” Another fast nod. 

Oh, this was too easy.

Tony ignored everything telling him that he was being an asshole as he walked right up to the spider and crouched down. Peter let out a shriek that Tony would feel bad about later as he got even closer. He clutched Tony even tighter now that they were so close. Tony reached out his hand and poked the spider, allowing it to run into his other hand. He stood up and held the spider up for Peter to see, smirking all the while. 

The kid didn’t notice at first.

“MR. STARK KILL IT!”

Now he did.

Tony let out a small, hearty laugh as he walked with both spiders to the nearest window.

“I thought you didn’t agree with killing,” he teased as FRIDAY automatically opened the window. He released the spider to the outside window before FRIDAY closed it once more.

“It deserves it!”

“Oh?” He moved away from the window and waited for Peter to respond. He didn’t. “The bad thing is gone now, Underoos. You can get off of me.” There was a beat of silence before Peter dropped from him. When Tony looked at him, he saw that the kid’s face was bright red. “Whoa, what’s with the tomato sauce on your face?”

He didn’t say anything. Peter just looked up at him for a few seconds before looking back to the window. Tony waited for the kid to do something, standing right in front of him as he did so. It took maybe two minutes before the kid went sprinting in the direction of his room, face even redder with embarrassment. Tony watched him go, with a slightly warm feeling in his chest.

“FRIDAY, do you have any idea why Mr. Parker acted so differently just then?” The kid was always laid back and reserved when it came to him. Just then, he had ignored everything he--maybe--respected about Tony and clung to him like it was the end of the world. If that wasn’t awkward for Peter, he didn’t believe it. Because now that he was alone, Tony felt awkward about it.

“People tend to respond to fear in many different ways. I’m assuming that one of Mr. Parker’s reactions is clinging. From the information in my system that you have acquired from Mrs. Parker, it seems that her nephew responds to physical touch.”

Well shit.

They were exact opposites in that field, then. How that was supposed to work out, Tony had not clue.

“Any idea why he ran back to his room?”

“Probably to hide his embarrassment, at least that’s what I’m gathering from what he’s saying to himself.” Kid talked to himself too, huh? Tony knew that he hadn’t learned everything about the kid, but he seemed like he was learning something about him for the first time.

“Add arachnophobia to Mr. Parker’s file, FRIDAY.” He didn’t bother waiting for her to respond before heading back towards the lab. 

The kid was going to be hiding out for a little bit, he knew it. Tony was fine with it, honestly. If the kid was that embarrassed by it, he could forget the whole thing happened--or make it seem like he forgot. 

The one thing he knew for certain, though, was that this was definitely a way more ridiculous fear for Peter to have than lily pads.

Spiderman afraid of spiders, who would’ve thought?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy this was fun. I enjoyed writing this a little too much.
> 
> In case it isn't clear, which it might not be, Tony and Peter's little writing tidbits when they're in focus depends based on what Tony is called. If it's Mr. Stark, it's Peter, and if it's Tony, it's...Tony. When it comes to the list of things Peter can and can't do, this fic is actually going to focus on how Peter doesn't do the best of job following those rules. Or that the universe doesn't allow him to. You'll see why in the future. 
> 
> When it comes to the fears of Peter, I actually based it off of my friends. One of my best friends is like, deadly afraid of lily pads and I thought it would be really funny to just, have that in there for a random reason. Tony's fear over balloons was what I got when I googled weird fears people had.
> 
> Anyways, Peter and Tony are starting to get to know each other. They'll be getting closer as the story progresses, but it isn't going to be an instant thing. More like they just all the sudden realize what kind of a relationship they have with each other is.
> 
> Also, there's a thing with the texting. If an adult is texting, it'll be grammatically correct, but if it's a teenager like Peter, it'll be decent enough. Just thought I'd let you know.
> 
> I'd love for you guys to leave me feedback and tell me what you think.


	3. Breaking the Rules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second his body went into the gas, he stopped. He didn’t know why either. Peter hadn’t even breathed in the gas yet and it seemed to have an effect on him. A stunning one. Peter groaned and took in a breath, ignoring the way Mason had covered his nose and mouth to shield himself from the gas also. 
> 
> Also a bad idea.
> 
> There was a slight stinging sensation in his stomach. That was...well, weird, but he was able to move now. The stinging slowly increased, but it wasn’t enough to do anything to him. How bad could it be with his metabolism anyway?
> 
> He really shouldn’t have mentally asked himself that.

Things were not supposed to turn out this way. 

Not even close.

All that Peter had wanted to do once school was over was go patrolling. That had meant that he had to get through school, though. Which, granted, it wasn’t that hard. Certainly difficult when he realized that there was decathlon practice after school today. A surprise on Peter’s part when it had actually been planned for a month already and he just sucked at reading his emails. 

_Never check any emails school related._

That had been Ned’s way of life ever since entering high school. For some reason, the freshmen had a bad reputation, at least when they were freshmen. From the way kids acted nowadays, it wasn’t hard to see why.

It had been a month since Peter got his list of stuff he could and could not do as Spiderman. He had broken no rules since getting that list as well, something he was really proud of. Ned was surprised at that fact, which was just so rude. He didn’t have any faith in his best friend whatsoever when it came to following rules requiring being a hero. Which was understandable, admittedly, but Peter wasn’t going to just agree with him. Point was, Peter wanted to keep up his streak. So the fact that that decathlon practice just so happened to be canceled was just a really great coincidence. To be fair, he hadn’t even known about the meeting until that day, so he already had the suit in his backpack. This was just the universe’s way of saying that he was meant to go out today. 

Should he have told May that the meeting was canceled?

Yes.

Did he?

No.

She would’ve gotten suspicious then. With that big math test coming up, Peter was supposed to cut back on patrolling time. To get ready for that test to bump his grade up to an A because his flipping math teacher didn’t know how to teach anything and was taking it out on Peter’s grade! Seriously, he actually tried in that class and was rewarded with a B. It’s honors geometry, literally just shapes! It should not be that hard!

Peter knows that May wouldn’t let him stay out patrolling if she knew the meeting was no longer happening. He knew he probably should’ve told her like the responsible nephew he was. He just kinda...didn’t. But c’mon, he really wanted to patrol. At least May thinking he was doing something productive would get him a few hours to snoop around town and do stuff. Easy business. Once school was out, it didn’t take Peter long to go to his familiar alley and get into costume.

He spent the first hour of patrol doing just that, patrolling. Nothing interesting was happening, which was so lame. Although Peter wanted to be able to handle some bigger tasks, deep down, he knew that he shouldn’t be doing that sort of thing. Especially since recent events. Because of said recent events, Peter was completely fine with handling the less dangerous tasks. He needed a break before the next, _big_ thing happened. The bad thing was there were no little tasks to deal with. It was as if the world was in its own peaceful little state of sheer happiness.

Which is _so_ boring.

School got out at 2:45. Decathlon meetings usually lasted thirty minutes. Practices lasted for two hours. Two hours--4:45--not counting the half an hour trip to his apartment. He basically had until 5:30 until he had to be walking through the door to his apartment. Roughly, a little less than two and a half hours because he could get back home faster as Spiderman than subway. Two and a half hours.

And of course, he would spend those hours watching Instagram videos on his phone because _nothing was happening!_

This had to be the definition of a bust. A big bust.

Now, logically speaking, Peter should probably have been happy about the no crime thing. Crime was bad, he was no fan of crime. But without crime, he was left without a job. And Peter actually liked his job, unlike most employed teenagers. He wasn’t even getting paid either! Not being able to do his job was kind of a bust.

“Karen, do you have any news of something...bad happening? To anyone?” He would take someone with a flat tire at this point. Peter didn’t know how to change a flat tire either.

_“There doesn’t seem to be anything going on from what I can detect.”_

Great. Perfect.

The world was full of rainbows today.

It wasn’t until Peter went back to his favorite alley that things got interesting. Currently, it was being occupied. People didn’t just occupy an alley for funsies, so maybe...something would happen. Something more than just finding somebody who needed help with a flat tire.

Peter snuck his way into the alley by climbing up on the walls. He had almost managed to perfect the stealth element of crime fighting at this point. The one thing he knew for a fact was important for stealth was being quiet and sneaky. He was better at the latter option in his personal opinion. Quiet was and will never be his specialty. 

There was a group of two men in the alley. Neither of them looked out of the ordinary, surprising enough. He was expecting people meeting in an alley to look shadier. Despite the fact that it was still light outside, the faces of each of the men were covered up. Not by masks exactly, but more like some sort of...shade? Peter didn’t know what it was, but their faces weren’t clearly visible. Somehow. They looked like they were doing some sort of deal from what Peter could make out from the top of the roof. He was only mildly paying attention to what they were saying, quickly checking the time.

5:03

He did not have a lot of time to deal with this. Because of his poor attempt at paying attention to the possible crime happening, Peter almost left before the little exchange was going on. It wasn’t until his ears picked up the sound of metal on metal did he remember that there was a freaking exchange in the alley where his backpack was! 

_Hello, pay attention, Parker!_

“You sure this is worth such a price?”

“Positive. Trust me, these aren’t ordinary drugs.”

So they were drug dealers. That was only _slightly_ illegal. He didn’t know much details about the drug laws, but he did know that selling them was no legal, especially in alleys. 

“You sure that they’re the right type of thing? David isn’t exactly known for being trustworthy in this department.”

“David has been doing this for a long time. It’s a new formula and it works great, but he seems to be the master.” Peter had no idea what they were talking about, but something told him it wasn’t just about the drugs. “I’m telling ya, these things are perfect for snatching people up.”

Ok, yeah. Definitely wasn’t just about the drugs anymore.

“David’s been testing it out for a while now. Using it, getting money, staying under the radar. And that’s how we want it to be.” The guy who was talking--Peter dubbed him as Cheech--was giving away a ton of information that he didn’t know he was giving to a vigilante. Not enough to determine anything yet, but getting there. “We don’t do this often. This drug is something that needs to stay out of public eye. You can’t play around with it or it’ll jeopardize David’s little trafficking situation.”

“What do you mean by trafficking?” That was the other guy--Peter called him Chong.

“Oh, you know exactly what I mean.”

Peter had a feeling he knew too. Human trafficking. What other trafficking involved snatching and drugs? 

He waited for Cheech to pull out what he presumed was the drugs and hold them out for Chong before making his move. He shot a web to grab the small package that Cheech was about to hand off and yank it out of his hands. The box fell to the ground and successfully got the attention of both the men below him. 

“If you want to have an exchange, you could at least do it at night when no one will see you.” Seriously, how dumb were these guys, doing this in broad daylight? “And just talking about your plans like no one’s watching? C’mon guys, at least make this somewhat entertaining.”

These guys were basically amateurs.

Whatever they responded with fell to deaf ears as Peter plopped down into the alley right between the two. Cheech looked pissed off while Chong looked really surprised. A little too surprised, honestly. He looked like he’d never even seen Spiderman before.

“Shit, dude. You didn’t say Deadpool was gonna be here.” 

_Who?_

Chong called him Deadpool? Who was Deadpool, was Deadpool even a person? Clearly, otherwise, he wouldn’t have been referred as him, duh. 

“This isn’t Deadpool, idiot. It’s Spiderman.” At least Cheech knew who he was. “An easier guy to deal with.”

Rude.

“I’m gonna forgive you for saying that.” Peter could tell that his entire presence here was making Cheech super angry. And for some reason, it was really amusing to him that one guy was getting so angry. “Considering that I can whoop ya right here and right now, you shouldn’t be saying that to me.”

It was then when Cheech threw a punch. Now, to say Peter wasn’t expecting it was not the case. He just didn’t react quite on time. The punch came right for his face, hitting him not that hard and sending him back a couple of feet. A pretty pathetic punch, honestly. Cheech didn’t seem to notice it and he went for a second one. Peter was more prepared this time, actually dodging the punch. Cheech kept on going at him, trying to hit him with his fists and failing really badly. Peter dodged each time--not counting the first one--not even bothering to hit back. He didn’t really want to with how bad this was already going for the guy.

Cheech was getting all of Peter’s attention that he completely forgot about the other guy. Chong was standing completely still, a surprised look still on his face. Peter saw as the guy’s eyes briefly landed on his own for a second. One second, one goddamn second.

In that second, with Peter looking at Chong and wondering if he would do anything, was enough for Cheech to successfully change tactics and start kicking. And just like the first punch, the first kick hit him. Unlike the punch, the kick was _hard_. It caused Peter to momentarily fall to the ground and rub his knee. Dirty spot to kick.

“Take the drugs!” The nerve Cheech had.

“What--”

“Take the damn drugs and get out, Mason!” 

Mason? Mason was Chong’s real name? Peter preferred Chong. 

Mason didn’t need to be told twice. Well actually, he did in retrospect. As Peter was still on the ground, Mason dove for the box really dramatically and stumbled on his feet as he tried to get up again. Cheech jumped on top of Peter but was easily thrown off of him because Peter was ten times stronger. 

Peter jumped to his feet once Cheech was off of him. The man was on his back near the alley wall while Mason was trying to get back on his feet for the second time. Peter allowed him to get up before approaching him. Mason seemed to pale, holding his hands up and dropping the box.

“Don’t kill me!”

“I don’t kill people!”

“Says you, Deadpool Jr.”

Who the hell was Deadpool?!

Peter didn’t even bother to correct his name. In the end, it wouldn’t really matter. He didn’t kill people, though. That’s the only fact that mattered. 

He webbed Mason to the wall behind him without much hesitation. Mason flinched when the web hit him and his face went blank. He looked like he was expecting the webbing to hurt. Peter turned his attention to the box and picked it up, turning around to web the other guy up before calling it a day. Instead, when he turned around he was punched in the freaking face by Cheech and went flying into the wall behind him. 

Ok, so Cheech doesn’t stay down long. And his punches get better. What kind of steroids was he on to all the sudden make a punch like that? He was a drug dealer so the fact was completely plausible.

And man, that punch hurt. Hurt more than expected anyway.

Peter knew he let go of the box as he went into the wall, but he knew it wasn’t the end of the world. He was down for a few seconds before jumping back up again. Cheech growled but didn’t go for Peter, instead focusing on Mason. He ducked away from a web that Peter shot at him and ran straight for Mason. Peter went to web him again and successfully snatched his leg. It stopped Cheech right in his tracks. Too bad he had a knife handy on him.

_Where did he even have that this whole time?_

Cheech cut through the webbing on his foot effortlessly, an action making Peter realize he should increase the strength in his webbing more when it came to sharp stuff. He went for Mason and cut the webbing off of him too, turning to Peter who went for the box. Cheech ran for the box, grabbing ahold of one end while Peter held onto the other.

They were playing a really bad game of tug-of-war. 

Peter was stronger than Cheech no doubt, so he could have easily just yanked the drug box out of his grasp. Cheech was holding on rather tight, though. He didn’t want to hurt him--badly--and he also didn’t want him to come flying straight into him if he tugged. Gravity and force of motion would send him hurtling straight into him. So in the end, that left him just trying to slowly force the box his way.

Apparently, Cheech was doing the same thing.

Why were criminals so intent on being criminals?

Peter sighed and tugged on the box hard, causing Cheech to put up more of a resistance against him. He could tell that he was slowly winning against the man, which he knew he would be. As time past, Peter’s mind suddenly landed on one thought that made him freeze up. The time.

Oh lord, he had not been keeping track of time. This was the last stop he was going to make before heading home and getting there on time. Sure, the fact that the crime stuff was happening at his last stop was convenient, he still was taking a long time to take care of it. And it wasn’t like he could just check his phone and look at the time! Even though he wanted to. A little too badly.

That left one option.

“Uh, do either one of you guys know the time?” 

Cheech and Mason had two very different reactions.

“Are you kidding me--”

“--5:21.”

Cheech gave Mason a very dirty look. Like, if looks could kill Mason would be dead, look.

“Did you seriously just give him the time?”

“Yeah, he asked for it.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to give it to him!”

“Uh, if he’s a mercenary like Deadpool, then yeah I do.”

“I’m not Deadpool!” Peter’s joining in the conversation caused both men to stop yelling at each other and focus back on him. “But thank you anyways.” He tugged on the box again, eying Cheech as he did so. “Can we like, wrap this up? It’s a school night and I have a curfew.”

“You’re ditching fighting for a curfew?” Peter did not like the way Cheech’s voice changed in tone. “That makes you a youngin, eh?”

Definitely didn’t like the change. “Look, can you just give me the box? I might even give you a head start afterward before taking you to the cops.”

“Oh no. I ain’t giving up this box.” Cheech seemed pretty determined, tugging back on the box hard to prove so.

“I could totally just yank it out of your hands, dude.” It was meant to be a threat, but for some reason, Cheech laughed at him when he said it. Rude, again.

“Then do it.”

And so he did. 

Peter doubts that Cheech was actually expecting him to yank the box right out of his hands. And to give him credit, he didn’t. The box didn’t come sailing out of Cheech’s hands the second Peter applied freakish force to his pull. Instead, the box tore open from the force both he and Cheech were tugging at, the contents spilling out to the ground. Peter stumbled backwards while Cheech did the same, neither of them reacting straight away.

Well, that was a bust.

When Peter’s focus went to the half of a box he was holding, only then did he realize what had happened. And frankly, he was a tad embarrassed by it. As he tore his gaze back to Cheech, he could only stare as the man’s eyes went wide as he stared at his own half of the box. The wideness vanished quickly, replaced by a smirk as he shoved Mason towards the end of the alley. He stomped his right leg down hard on the pavement below, a cracking sound forming in Peter’s ears.

Peter looked down to where Cheech had stomped and saw broken glass on the alley floor. Glass, as in the thing that was holding the drug. Great, he destroyed it. Yay.

“Oh come on! Did you have to destroy it?” Now he didn’t have any evidence.

“Oh, I didn’t destroy it.”

Before Peter could even process what those words meant, Cheech lifted his foot from the broken glass. The second he did so, gas sputtered into the air. Cheech put a hand over his nose and mouth and went running over to Mason, leaving Peter with the gas. Peter aimed to follow them, passing right through the gas as he did so.

Not a good plan.

The second his body went into the gas, he stopped. He didn’t know why either. Peter hadn’t even breathed in the gas yet and it seemed to have an effect on him. A stunning one. Peter groaned and took in a breath, ignoring the way Mason had covered his nose and mouth to shield himself from the gas also. 

Also a bad idea.

There was a slight stinging sensation in his stomach. That was...well, weird, but he was able to move now. The stinging slowly increased, but it wasn’t enough to do anything to him. How bad could it be with his metabolism anyway?

He really shouldn’t have mentally asked himself that.

Another breath, and suddenly Peter’s stomach was on fire. It hurt a lot. He couldn’t stop himself from falling to the ground and clutching it in pain. It hurt so much and he had no idea why. The gas’ effects had suddenly hit him like a truck. A really heavy truck. He didn’t manage to hear what Cheech had spoken to him before the two men were suddenly gone from the alley, leaving him all alone in his own pain. God, it hurt so bad! 

“Karen…” Even his voice felt like it was in pain. “What’s...happening?”

_“There seems to be a foreign substance in your body. I cannot detect what it is or what it is doing to you, however.”_

Oh, so Karen didn’t even know what was happening? Swell.

“It’s...hurting…” All the sudden his stomach gave out a jerk of white pain that would’ve made Peter scream normally. In fact, he actually tried to scream. Out of pain and frustration for letting the drug guys get away and getting drugged unintentionally by their stupid drug! He just couldn’t scream, though. “Karen?”

_“I’m scanning your vitals. It appears as if this substance is blocking the part of the brain that receives messages of pain. However, based on your current actions, it seems as if you are feeling the pain fully, which shouldn’t happen. Based on that, I’m assuming that this substance is not only causing pain that you are feeling, but is also creating some sort of reaction that isn’t allowing you to relieve that pain.”_

Hence, screaming.

He’d done a few research projects on it before. The question came up suddenly in his mind one day in chemistry. Why do people scream when in pain? Sure, all he needed to go was google it and get an answer, but it still made him think about it more. People apparently screamed to relieve pain, which didn’t make much sense. They did it to get attention too so that someone would be aware of their pain and make them feel better. That was the two most common theories anyways.

The scientific part revolved around the brain and nerves. All that Peter really had gotten into was that the nerves sent a message to the brain when the body was in pain and the reaction would be a scream. 

With his current predicament, Peter fully believed it now. This drug--this gas--had blocked his nerves from allowing them to tell the brain that he hurt without making him numb. Without making it so he couldn’t feel pain, only making it so he couldn’t verbally express it.

It was terrifying.

“How...long should...” God, he couldn’t even finish his sentence.

_“With your metabolism, the substance should only have an effect on your body for another thirty seconds.”_

Thank god. Peter waited thirty whole seconds for the effects to wear off. It felt like thirty whole minutes. He instantly knew when the drug ceased to have any hold over his body. When his stomach stopped twisting in pain, he knew it was done. It still took him a few minutes to get to his feet, though.

The first thing he did when he got up was check the time. 

5:33.

So much for being home on time. This whole situation sucked. Not only was his attempt at taking care of a drug deal a bust, but he was going to get home and face an angry May. Or, an almost positively going to be angry May.

The day just kept getting better and better.

The only saving grace was that his backpack was still where he left it. Despite himself, Peter got out of his suit and into his normal kid clothes swiftly. Stuffing his suit in his backpack, he let out a sigh and made his way in the direction of his apartment.

When he got there, May was not home. He felt ridiculous for cheering for joy. 

She wasn’t here, she wouldn’t know about him getting back later than what was normal. It was like someone was looking out for him. Wait, but why wasn’t she here?

Peter went over to the fridge and scanned it for a note of some kind. Whenever May was out unexpected, there was a note left on the fridge. Sure enough, there was a yellow post-it note hanging on the fridge by a magnet. Peter picked up the note and began to read it.

_Got called into work last minute today. Should be home by seven, don’t wait up for me for dinner :-)_

The smirk that came over Peter’s face was something he really couldn’t help at this point. May was too good for this world, taking extra shifts and allowing herself to be on speed dial for the hospital whenever. She worked herself silly and Peter respected her so much for it. He felt guilty, of course, with May working so much, but she did like her job, so that was good. A real plus for her.

Peter set the note on the counter and thought about what kind of food that he could easily eat that would be dinner appropriate. Honestly, all he could think about was pasta. Pasta was easy and one of the only things that he could cook and things that May could cook successfully. She was Italian, she always said she was born to make pasta. The second Peter pulled the noodles out from the cupboard, he felt himself tense up. All the sudden, he didn’t think he was hungry anymore. His stomach was yelling at him for food, but it was also yelling at him that there was no way he could eat anything tonight. Which was not normal.

He dug his suit out of his backpack and put on his mask. It would be easier to use Karen as a resource than to google anything.

“Hey, Karen? Can you deduce if the substance that was in my body previously has any sort of, lasting effects?” There was no way he could just start googling drugs and lasting effects in hope of getting what he wanted.

_“It appears as if the substance does have a lasting effect.”_

“Ok.” There was a pause. “Can you tell me what it is?”

_“It seems to me that it's giving off a drug effect on the body, acting as an appetite substance. Appetite substances are what many people use when trying to lose weight. It makes their body feel full so they won’t eat as much. In your case, it would appear that it has the same effect, only that it is preventing your body from eating food should you attempt.”_

Damn drugs.

Guess he wasn’t going to be eating anything tonight.

“How long should this effect last?”

_“Until tomorrow morning.”_

Good, at least he would be back to normal in the morning. “Any other effects?”

_“From what I can detect, that is it.”_

Excellent.

Just like that, Peter put away the box of noodles and retreated into his room with his backpack. He took off the mask and threw it down in one of his chairs as he pulled out his phone. It was nearly dead because he left the wifi on all day and it never connected to it. ‘Course that would suck the battery dry. He mindlessly scrolled through youtube, no videos catching his eye. 

It wasn’t until after a half hour of that did Peter realize that he just wanted to sleep. Sleep and get over this horrible day that should have gone better if he wasn’t an idiot. 

The teenager collapsed on his bed after plugging in his phone to the charger and shut his eyes. Sleep was calling him and he was going to answer. He wanted nothing more than to forget about those drug dealers and getting drugged--two really cruddy things. To forget about the fact that he was hungry but couldn’t eat ‘cause his body was going on its own teenage rebellion and that he had homework but couldn’t focus because it required internet and last time he was on that he looked up food videos only to remember that his body hated him and wouldn’t cooperate because he was drugged! God, everything dealt with that drug, and that sucked!

After his mini self-rant in his mind, Peter felt himself dozing off. He allowed himself to relax, having his mind go blank as sleep was almost to him. 

When the familiar tune of Black Sabbath’s Iron Man came flowing into the room at full volume, Peter groaned. More out of annoyance that the shrilling volume amount. He didn’t even have to guess who was calling him. Peter opened his eyes and reached for his phone. Sure enough, he was getting a call from Tony Freaking Stark. 

Peter didn’t mean to let the phone ring for as long as it did. In fact, he was thinking about answering it. So, in all fairness, Karen didn’t have to answer it for him and force Mr. Stark through the line on speakerphone. The reason why Peter didn’t answer the phone in the first place was actually because of a really stupid thought bubble that came into his head in the first place.

_When did I set that as my ringtone for him?_

_“You didn’t. I have my ways.”_

Oh, he said that out loud.

_“And speaking of my ways, I also happen to know about your little run-in today. You know, during the time period where you aren’t supposed to be patrolling and on a practice night too. Let’s talk about that.”_

“Oh crap.”

_“Yes, oh crap indeed.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Peter, all he wanted to do was fight some crime!
> 
> Anyways, things are starting to heat up now. We're finally starting to get into some plot related stuff. This chapter doesn't really give away much, but the whole drug thing is very important when it comes to the actual plot and not father-son relationship stuff.
> 
> So from here on out, it's gonna be a mixture of Irondad and plot stuff. I'm not sure if that makes any sense, but as it gets further along it'll, hopefully, start to make more sense.
> 
> I've been trying to determine how many chapters this fic is gonna be. I haven't been able to narrow it down at all simply because of some of the stuff that I am wanting to have in here. Let's just say that there's gonna be at least ten chapters, but there's probably gonna be way more. Let's face it. So anyway, look forward to that in the future.
> 
> As always, let me know what you guys think!


	4. Attack of the Mood Swings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The way that Peter cut himself off gave Tony enough time to fully think about what he said. He processed it a little too fast so his words worked before his brain did.
> 
> “You did a drug deal?” His voice sounded surprisingly calm all things considered.
> 
> ”Wha--no that’s not what I meant. Not like--I-I didn’t do any drugs. Sure I got doused by something unintentionally but it totally wasn’t my fault. I tried to wrap stuff up fast and then there was the yelling and he was on top of me--”
> 
> He cut himself off again, Tony realized. And when he did, it was at the worst possible place he could’ve stopped at.
> 
> Someone was on top of the kid in the middle of a drug deal?! What the hell!
> 
> ”Uh, wait that sounded so bad ohmygod--”
> 
> “Yeah, ok--can you shut up now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa, a beginning Author's Note, what?
> 
> Yeah, so here's a little note of me saying that this chapter is long. Like, really long. But that's because I wanted to have a lot in here so at least it's a lot of content! Yay!

He could deal with politicians, he could deal with alien attacks, he could even deal with being in a semi-stable relationship with a fierce businesswoman. But teenagers he could not handle. 

Tony was having a fairly productive day. Working on a whole bunch of new suit updates in the lab, experimenting with that new nanotechnology stuff. Sure, he set off the fire alarm just a few times, but that wasn’t the point. He didn’t explode the lab this time, which was a big step for him! He was getting somewhere! Which, honestly, wasn’t that too far of a stretch for him because he was _him_. It still got him excited, though.

So when he got an alert from the Baby Monitor Protocol saying that Peter Parker’s vitals had gotten thrown off the roof suddenly, he was less than pleased. Especially given the fact that there was no freaking footage of what caused it!

He really needed to upgrade the kid’s suit. ‘Course, he did make him a new one--work in progress--and he expected him to take it. But he didn’t because he was mature or some shit like that.

It wasn’t even seven yet and already he was feeling the need for another coffee. Calling him was the last thing he wanted to do, but logically he knew he had to. Tony was the kid’s mentor now--he never really stopped. It was his job. And honestly, he kinda wanted to make sure nothing was wrong with the kid. Nothing life-threatening because that would not be good. Based on the fact that his tracker said that Peter was at his apartment, Tony assumed that whatever happened wasn’t anything bad. But the kid liked sneaking around so how could he be sure?!

_”When did I set that as his ringtone?”_

The sound of the kid’s voice sounding dead confused almost caused Tony to smirk. Almost.

“You didn’t. I have my ways.” In truth, he had given himself remote access to the kid’s phone the second he put his number in there. “And speaking of my ways, I also happen to know about your little run-in today. You know, during the time period where you aren’t supposed to be patrolling and on a practice night too. Let’s talk about that.”

The moment that he and May made all of those rules, Tony knew that there was no way that Peter wouldn’t break them. At least not all of them. He did have some faith in the kid to not break them right off the bat. Sure, he had made it a month. Longer than expected, honestly.

_”Oh crap.”_

“Yes, oh crap indeed.” 

Tony could hear shuffling coming from the other side of the phone. He probably caught the kid off guard, calling him out of nowhere. But in his mind, it made complete and utter sense. Kinda. He was expecting for the kid to go full on blabber mode. The fact that he hadn’t yet was impressive.

_“Mr. Stark I’m so sorry!”_

And nevermind, here it came.

“Kid--”

_“I didn’t know that you would find out! I wasn’t even planning on telling you because it was supposed to be an easy job but it so wasn’t and these guys sucked!”_

“Hey--”

_“Ok, look, I know I screwed up. I know I broke the rules but technically I didn’t. The meeting today was canceled and how did you even know about that because I didn’t even know about that? But I had time because May thought that I was at the meeting because she wasn’t told otherwise and I may not have told her that it was canceled. May as in the verb and not my aunt. I mean, you obviously knew that because you aren’t stupid, but I figured that maybe you didn’t--god I usedmayagain--”_

“Listen--

 _“No you listen!”_ Tony raised his eyebrows at the sudden outburst. _“I didn’t break the rules! I mean I did, but with good intentions, I swear! I didn’t mean for the dealing to go south, I meant to deal with the drugs after the guys--”_

The way that Peter cut himself off gave Tony enough time to fully think about what he said. He processed it a little too fast so his words worked before his brain did.

“You did a drug deal?” His voice sounded surprisingly calm all things considered.

_”Wha--no that’s not what I meant. Not like--I-I didn’t do any drugs. Sure I got doused by something unintentionally but it totally wasn’t my fault. I tried to wrap stuff up fast and then there was the yelling and he was on top of me--”_

He cut himself off again, Tony realized. And when he did, it was at the worst possible place he could’ve stopped at. 

Someone was on top of the kid in the middle of a drug deal?! What the hell!

_”Uh, wait that sounded so bad ohmygod--”_

“Yeah, ok--can you shut up now?”

_”Shutting up.”_

Tony let out a really long and loud sigh. He couldn’t bring himself to think of anything just seconds before. Now, his brain was going a hundred miles a minute. It was overwhelming. Normally he had a ton of thoughts moving in his head, swirling all around. But those were normal thoughts. Normal thoughts about the fact that he was an engaged man, his best friend was paralyzed, and the only family he ever had stabbed his father’s shield into his chest and flip-flopping the backstabbing into front stabbing. Yeah, normal thoughts.

Instead, he was thinking about what the actual hell it meant when Peter said that this drugged up guy was on top of him.

“Ok, so let me get this straight. You went out patrolling because your meeting was canceled but you didn’t even know about it in the first place so you were already going to go out. Somehow you got involved in a drug deal and this guy got on top of you?” 

God, this was an awkward situation. He did not want to have this talk right now. Or never, really, but especially not right now.

_”Uh, yeah?”_

“Uh, yeah? Uh, no! I need a straight answer, no question.”

_”Ok, so yeah. Basically that, except the on top of thing, that’s super bad and I chose really bad words to explain the situation so please don’t look at it like it was--”_

“Yeah, I won’t.” 

Anymore.

There was just something about this that was just weird. Weird on so many levels. 

“Let’s just forget that we both had that...miscommunication.” That was definitely not the right word. “But, the rest of this is so not getting ignored.” Tony quickly pulled the phone away from his ear to check the date. Oh baby, it was Thursday. “You know what, we can talk about this tomorrow.”

There was a pause. A moment of silence.

Shuffling came from the other side of the phone and then a small gasp. Then a groan followed by a very large thump. 

“Uh...”

_”Fine, but I can’t guarantee I’ll remember everything tomorrow. Pretty sure I’m getting high off whatever I inhaled even though Karen said it would wear off but I’m almost positive it’s only getting worse...”_

“What do you mean high?”

_“Nothing.”_

“No, not nothing.”

_“Yes nothing. Hanging up now.”_

“Hey--” He wasn’t ever able to finish his sentence before he heard a beeping noise coming from the other end of the line. Tony let out an annoyed huff and turned off his phone. 

Whatever, this was fine. He could deal with this all tomorrow when he saw Peter. Because it would be the weekend after the kid got out of school. Then it would be another hour before he would see the kid and then yell his face off. He had only yelled at him...once before for a very similar reason.

Minus the drugs and the phone call and the rule breaking. So basically the whole situation except for getting involved with bad people.

Tony glanced at the clock and read the time. Almost seven. He could do something productive by looking at how much time he had to kill before he could yell at the kid for being a damn idiot. All his productive ideas were stuff that could’ve been done at three in the morning. More like _would_ be done at three in the morning because there was no way he was doing anything while this was all fresh on the mind.

Deep down, Tony knew he should be concerned. He _was_ concerned, but right now he was more pissed than concerned. The kid broke the rules that he and May spent a long time going over--the same rules that he basically made FRIDAY hound into his skull and with reminders and surprised emails. The same rules that Pepper somehow found out about and called him each night to hound them even further into his head. And then Rhodey somehow found out from there and made fun of him for having given rules to the Spiderguy because Rhodey still had no idea about who Spiderman was.

The kid broke the rules! He could’ve gotten hurt! Hell, he got high on...something--maybe?!

It was still unknown.

“FRI, how many hours till 3:45 PM tomorrow?”

“Twenty hours and seven minutes.”

Oh brother. Tony got up and went to the nearest sink that he could find. He turned it on and splashed some on his face. Like, a lot of water. When his face was wetter than the sink, he left to go back to his lab.

Twenty hours. Eh, it’s not the longest he's gone without coffee.

 

He made it nineteen hours before he became completely empty.

In his defense, it was nineteen hours once he said he was going to work for twenty hours. Before that, he had gone a full twelve hours hour without coffee. So, twenty-one hours wasn’t bad. Almost a full day, pretty impressive on his part. Sure, FRIDAY advised against it, but she wasn’t his boss. When she called Pepper and she got all mad at him, he only got slightly scared.

Only slightly.

So he did what he did best and said he would sleep on it when he actually went and made himself a pot of coffee. He didn’t even bother to pour it in a cup this time before taking a giant gulp of it. 

His burnt tongue totally wasn’t karma.

The remaining hour that he could be a mess passed by just like that. During that hour he changed clothes and finished his entire pot of coffee. Oh, you know, and realized that it was Friday and that yesterday was Thursday and the kid skipped out on going to the compound just to do patrol even with his decathlon meeting canceled! Other than that, nothing much happened until Happy texted him that the kid was coming up. All the sudden he was freaking the heck out. 

Great, all this time passed and he didn’t even prepare his brilliant monologue. He only got the title, which was The Brilliance of Listening. Now he actually had to give that monologue by just bull shitting it. That was not a good ever a good thing to do unless it was the press. Then they deserved it. 

“Mr. Stark?”

Screw it, he was bull shitting it.

“Ok, sit down. We’re gonna talk now.” He didn’t even see Peter walk into his lab. He just heard him awkwardly shuffling over to the nearest chair. “You do remember our conversation on the phone, right?”

Silence.

Tony turned around in his swivel chair very dramatically when he didn’t get a reply from Peter within two minutes. He saw the kid staring at him with really foggy eyes. Foggy, but completely focused. 

“Yes.”

The reply came a good four minutes after the question was asked. To his credit, Peter seemed to be completely aware of the fact that he took so long to answer, mumbling an apology shortly after. The kid blinked a few more times as Tony stared him down, trying to find some sort of hidden meaning behind the cloudy eyes. He found none.

“...You aren’t mad are you?”

Tony made a scoffing noise that he was pretty sure made the kid flinch slightly.

“A little bit.” He had to be somewhat honest. In truth, he was super angry, but could anyone blame him? It was, what, a month since that whole talk about responsibility and such? One would think that the kid would have some of the protocols memorized by now. “But I’m not gonna explode at you.”

Peter let out a sigh of relief.

“I’m just gonna need your suit.”

And dear god, you would think it was the end of the world with the way the kid reacted.

“What? No!” The fog in his eyes was still there, but it was an angry fog. “You can’t do that!”

“Uh, yeah I can.” He was trying so hard not to get angry with how similar of a situation this was to last time. “And before _you_ yell at me about the thing that _I_ gave you, you could just listen--”

“I know I broke one rule but it was only _one!_ You can’t expect me to just sit back if there’s something going on!”

“Jesus, kid. This is not about that--”

“I’ll just end up going out in my crappy one. Contrary to what Ned thinks, it is completely functional still and not the worst thing in the world--”

“--Will you please listen to me, goddamit!” 

He was trying really hard now not to get really angry. But yelling was always something that riled him up. And both he and the kid were doing it.

Speaking of the kid, he snapped his mouth shut and just stared at Tony with big brown doe eyes. _Doe_ eyes! He had to block eye contact in order for him to remember just why he needed to take the kid’s suit and explain it in a way that wouldn’t freak him out.

“I’m not taking it away from you.” God, he was never making that mistake again. “I need it so I can add a few upgrades.”

And snoop the hell out of the Baby Monitor footage.

Peter’s nose crinkled as the words sunk in. “Why do you need to do that? I can add my own upgrades.” 

Tony has no doubt that he could. Hell, he probably added a billion little tiny things into his suit in the past month that blew past Tony completely. He was good at making those things unnoticeable. 

“You can’t add your own little upgrades because I don’t want your mits messing up this suit.” Partially true. “Oh, and you’re kinda not gonna be in here playing around this weekend. Call it punishment for breaking my rules and pretending like I wouldn’t know about it.”

“Wh-what?” 

“Ah--nope. How much homework do you happen to have?”

Peter stood in an awkward fidgetiness, debating whether or not to open his backpack to see how much he had or try to remember it from memory. It was almost funny how the twisting gears of his brain’s obvious thinking was being expressed on his face.

“Spanish essay--”

“Perfect.” Tony didn’t let Peter finish the other items that he needed to do. “You are going to be spending your evening working on that in your room while I spend mine working on your suit and we’re both gonna be happy about it.” Or pretend to be happy at the very least. “Off you go now.”

“Wait, what?” 

Tony was well aware of the confusion that was going on in the teenager, but he didn’t dwell on it as he pushed Peter out of the lab as the teen threw his suit at him. He waved at him as the kid cocked his head in even more confusion before yelling at him to do his Spanish essay. It was like something snapped in him and the kid went zooming off right afterward. He was a very interesting kid.

Not weird--yes weird--just a tad interesting. 

The mechanic looked down at the Spiderman suit in his hands and grimaced. It was cold. Unnaturally so, as it was at least 69 degrees in here. And yes, Tony had that temp set at its number on purpose, matureness be damned. 

It so wasn’t childish, thank you very much Rhodey.

He set the suit down on his desk and instantly connected it to his computer. An overwhelming amount of files came up on his screen with an even bigger amount of coding that popped up next to it. Tony ignored it all as he scrolled through them all in search of the one thing he was looking for. It took him no time at all until he saw the words BABY MONITOR PROTOCOL.

“God, I’m great.” This was the first time going through the entirety of the suits coding since he had made the damn thing. His memory was still chipper as ever.

As he dived into the suit’s protocol, Tony felt his face scowl as he saw the overwhelming amount of footage available for him to access. And let it be known, there was a ton of it. A good 10% of it was footage he can’t remember seeing ever or getting a report about when Happy forwarded them to him. 

“FRI, how come I didn’t get some of these?” Some of these videos were old. Dating back pre Vulture.

“To which are you referring to?”

So there was more than one answer? Great, he had some programming fails to deal with now. Fun.

“The ones dating back a month.”

“It seems as if there are multiple clips that date back to a month ago. You’ll need to be more specific when you ask questions, Boss.” Wow, FRIDAY was getting sassier. “From some of the files, it seems that there is a pattern with the ones you aren’t seeing. They were simply recorded when Mr. Parker was not out patrolling or fighting.”

Oh.

“Why wouldn’t I get those?”

“The protocol that sends all of these files is made specifically for outside situations. Ones that involve danger, fighting, or mask breech, and these don’t appear to have any qualities that fit that requirement.” 

So it wasn’t a programming fail, just not an important situation to be sent to him. Thank god.

“Some of these also seemed to have been blocked by Mr. Parker’s AI, Karen, under a file titled Private.”

Private? Yeah, how about not.

“Override that, please.” He had seniority over any and all things Peter attempted to do with the suit’s protocols. “And play the best one out of all of them.”

Seconds later, the screen lit up with Peter in his mask looking into a mirror. He had a hammer in his hand and nerdy white t-shirt on, talking in a very bad British accent.

_”It is I, Thor, son of Odin!”_

Tony couldn’t help but laugh at that. Not just a small laugh either. A full on hearty one. He hadn’t laughed like that since the Tony Stank thing. God, leave it to Thor to lighten a situation, even without being there.

“Save that to memories, FRI.” 

He quickly had FRIDAY save all the other _private_ footage to his laptop before going further into the dates. He was looking for the footage of what happened yesterday. As much as he wanted to trust Spiderman, he just couldn’t. Kid talked too fast to clearly process all of his information, even on a regular report. 

It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for. It was, thankfully, the last recorded footage from the protocol. So the kid was sane and didn’t go out after that? Good for him.

“Ok, so why wasn’t this sent to me?” It was more of a rhetorical question. For himself. But FRIDAY still answered, bless her.

“It is not Sunday, Boss. You requested to get all footage at the end of the week, which is Sunday.”

Well shit. That was true. It was only Friday--the day, not AI--which was two days from the end of the week. Whatever, he’d just look at it now and save himself some trouble. 

Tony spent a long amount of time looking at the footage. The first bit of it started off really slow. There was absolutely nothing going on. The kid wasn’t even talking during the first two hours of footage. It looked like he was just sitting around for most of the time based on the same footage being the basis of the video for most of it. Wow, he basically had a day off from crime and didn’t take it for granted? Kids.

It got to the point where Tony fast forwarded through all that boring stuff. Ignoring all the sudden changes of scenery that led to--probably--more sitting. When he did stop it, it was because he heard the kid talking. And it was at Karen, asking her about how to change a...tire? What?

“Why does he need to know how to change a tire?”

“To change a tire, Boss.”

Right, spunky AI. He almost forgot about her. God, how come his AI’s were so sassy while Peter’s seemed to be the exact opposite? It wasn’t fair. 

When the scenery changed for what had to be the hundredth time, Tony stopped the fast forward. This was right at an alley. 

Bingo.

For the most part, there wasn’t much that Tony got out of all the footage. In fact, it was just like a completely normal exchange between Spiderman and crooks. Normal in a sense that a specific situation like that was normal. Even the fight was pretty basic. The whole Deadpool thing was strange--the one guy called Peter that for some reason. Was it a new slang? 

When a blast of gas came up, that’s when things got interesting. Instead of being a reasonable little hero and go around the smog, the kid went straight into it. Of course. Tony couldn’t even bring himself to be surprised. 

After that, everything got really slow. He was sure it wasn’t the footage getting cut off because--c’mon guys--it was his technology. His stuff didn’t get cut off by gasified drugs. No, it was simply the kid moving very slowly. Or not at all, really. Tony watched as the camera was completely still, hearing very confused grunts of presumed pain coming from the teenager who had to have breathed in the gas. Then Peter was on the floor, the guys taunted him because that’s what they do best, then left, and then Peter was still on the floor asking Karen what had happened to him.

Peter had remained on the alley floor for another thirty seconds before slowly getting up and making his way to a dumpster? Why? Oh, he got his backpack from it. Still weird.

Tony rubbed a hand over his eyes once the kid had put the mask on once he was at his apartment and asked Karen a few more questions before the footage stopped completely. 

Great.

He had a lot to work with here.

First off, the drug, which was the most important. Then it came to those guys. Tony knows that he shouldn’t get involved in something that good little Spidey got himself involved in--mainly because that didn’t seem to end well for the latter--but he couldn’t help it. This time, he felt obligated. At the very least, he could find shit out and do nothing with it. Nothing was wrong with that.

There wasn’t much that he could do from the little amount of footage, though. He had faces on the two druggies, which would be good information to have, but nothing much else.

“Hmm...FRI, these guys mentioned trafficking, correct?” Trafficking and drugs seemed to go hand in hand if he was thinking about the right type of trafficking.

“Yes, Boss.”

“Great. Can you do a facial scan on both of them?”

The two guys also mentioned a guy named David. Too bad that was such a common name. Tony didn’t even bother thinking about how Peter probably had--or was gonna--do this exact same process when it came to this footage. He wasn’t dumb and Tony knew that the kid already knew about the protocol with that private file. So in a sense, this was just for his own, personal sense of information.

“Found files on one of the two individuals. Mason Crawfield, thirty-two years old. There isn’t much on his file, however, he does have a past criminal record with drug dealings.”

Looks like he was still in that business.

“While there is no name on the other individual, his face has appeared on many police reports involving missing person cases.”

Hence the trafficking part of the drug deal, Tony assumed. Great, quite a bit of info. The kid could deal with this if he chose to get into it.

“Anything else, FRI?”

“Actually, yes. These missing person cases all seemed to happen this year. There are a little over thirty current cases, with five more previously being solved. Each missing person is from either New York or New Jersey and all of them seem to be in the college age, the oldest being twenty-four and the youngest being nineteen.” Tony felt himself turn white.

Thirty missing person cases from New York this year? Shit, he should really watch the news.

“They have any connections to either of our guys here?”

“No. The unnamed man is considered to have something to do with some of the disappearances because of the drugs he is selling. He is on police radar for numerous sellings, but the substances he sells remain a mystery. Mason seems to have recently been getting involved and has yet to make an actual appearance that would catch authorities attention.”

Well, he certainly would be now. Not on the police, sure, but on Tony’s.

“Tell me about these missing reports.”

“The five solved cases have ended with the finding of a body. Four girls and one boy, each in their twenties. Cause of death seemed to have been drug overdose, no foul play was suggested and each case was led by police to be a suicide attempt.”

Tony tensed up at that last bit. He does remember something about that being brought up in one of those conference calls between him, Pepper, and Happy. Those cases were left open, last he heard.

Clearly, he hadn’t heard correctly.

“All of these other cases seem to involve no foul play either, at least from what police have concluded so far. Human trafficking seems to be what the police are going for since the victims are from the same area.”

Human trafficking, just great. Tony was expecting that, but it just sucked to hear it. Somehow, he always forgot how the world was such an awful place.

“Anything else, Boss?”

“Nope. Thank you as always, FRI.”

“Of course.”

Well, Tony got more information than he would’ve liked. In the end, it was all for a good cause. He just wanted to know who these guys were and now he knew about some conspiracy going on. Thirty missing college kids from this area. That wasn’t good at all. He felt sick thinking about the possible human trafficking scheme behind it too. But in the end, he couldn’t get involved. Not really. 

After all, he signed those stupid Accords, a fact that Ross loved to remind him of. Tony was grateful that Ross hadn’t heard about the Ferry incident otherwise he would’ve had hell. Ross didn’t seem to care about FBI stuff, so thank god that Tony called them before that went down.

If Tony wanted anything to do with any of these cases, he would just have to sit back and watch. Watch Peter, specifically to see if he would get himself involved with those two guys again. Tony, personally, hoped he wouldn’t, but the kid was unreadable. Even with access to police data files and such, it was still unknown if he would get in super deep into that case. Probably not, considering that it was just drugs for all Peter knew. Until he found out about the linked missing person cases.

...On second thought, maybe he would dive a little further into this.

 

Peter had a hard time going to sleep.

He could say it was because of his Spanish essay. That’s what he told Ned. That essay was really being an actual pain and Peter wasn’t really able to get a firm set on what he needed to write down. When he had to go back and reread the prompt five times during one sentence, it was pretty much guaranteed that he wasn’t getting this thing done tonight.

Therefore, he chose sleep. However, sleep, as it turns out, was boring. So instead of that, he called Ned. And boy, did Ned chat the hell out of him.

Some people--all people--said that Peter talked a lot when you got him started. Those same people--still all--would have to say that if Ned got started he would talk way more than what Peter could ever hope to. 

They hadn’t really talked about anything new. Just how essays sucked, especially Spanish ones, and then Ned took the wheel and began asking Peter a whole bunch of stuff. Now it wasn’t anything super complex or hard to think about, but it took Peter a while to answer each question. Or at least to come up with a good answer while he was in the middle of said answer. Ned probably thought that Peter was, well Peter, during all of this. Same, normal Peter that hadn’t just got sent to his room by Tony Stark to work on homework.

And of course, Peter said that out loud so Ned asked him even more questions.

What was his life?

They talked for a good three hours. It wasn’t until Ned’s mom came into his room and told him--practically forced him--that he needed to go to bed because it was late. Peter always liked that about Ned’s mom. She always knew what was up, but not in a creepy or overbearing way. 

After Ned hung up, Peter decided to go to bed for real this time. He had gotten pretty far before he realized that he couldn’t fall asleep. Not that he didn’t want to, but that he literally couldn’t. His eyes would not cooperate and stay closed. His mind was too wound up to fall asleep; still focusing on the previous events of the day that had long past.

Specifically school.

Thinking about school outside of school was what teenagers would consider lame. Which it was. Unfortunately, it was necessary when it came to homework of scheduling any kind of doctor appointments. Unconsciously thinking about school while trying to sleep was a whole new factor of lame.

School hadn’t even been all that great today.

Classes passed by slower than usual and most teachers started to enforce a no cell phone rule like every kid was one their phone throughout class. Which was stupid because they weren’t. Then that stupid English final was moved up to Monday. 

_Monday!_

It was cruel to have a test of any sort on a Monday. 

Worst of all, Peter had to make more web fluid because he was running really low on that. Normally, that was his favorite part of Chemistry. For some reason, the freedom of independence in Chemistry class didn’t exist anymore and every student had to do their work in groups of four. Ned and MJ were obviously first choices for Peter but they still had to have a fourth person to work with which totally messed up his system on sneaking around. 

Ned knew about Spiderman while MJ just didn’t seem to care whenever he messed around with chemicals.

In short, Peter had to work fast when it came to making his web fluid. Now he was already speedy when it came to that, but when he was constantly improving it, it started becoming harder. When that improving process became just winging it in Mr. Stark’s lab, there ended up being way more trial and error. He had way more chemicals, and as such, there were way more explosions. Ok, only one explosion--which was a total accident and Mr. Stark does not need to know about it.

Because of the fact that he had not gone over to the compound the previous day, he hadn’t exactly experimented with anything new. So that left Chemistry.

Now it wasn’t hard to be sneaky about mixing chemicals together at all. If it was, Peter was sure he would’ve been caught by now. However, group projects always required group effort which meant paying attention to everything. Which meant multitasking. 

Needless to say, multitasking while working on web fluid was a big mistake.

Peter ended up overheating the entire fluid. It wasn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world since only he noticed, but it had turned the entirety of the substance into a goddamn gas! He evaporated his own web fluid! To make matters worse, he had to dispose of it before he set off the smoke alarm because his little project had turned into a hot, steamy gas that would set off the alarm if it reached it. Instead of thinking with his big brain of his, Peter decided it would be a great idea to just inhale it all. 

To be fair though, it was a very small cloud.

Now, he wasn’t one to admit defeat when it came to science, but when it came to that move specifically, he definitely didn’t want to admit it. Turns out, inhaling vaporized web fluid was not a good idea. Peter was pretty sure he had done something to his body based on the way his senses were going crazy.

As if Chemistry couldn’t get any worse, the other kid in their group saw Peter inhale all of his failed web fluid and told the entire glass that he was snorting drugs. Fun.

Peter ended up staying inside of Chemistry during lunch to create his web fluid correctly, while also convincing that teacher that he was not doing any drugs like his entire class assumed now. Not his best moment, by far. 

He ended up not eating lunch before going to Spanish only to learn about having to write an essay over the weekend. Double fun. 

All of that brought Peter back to the present just like that. 

Crap, he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. That was...he actually didn’t know how many hours ago. His brain was not focused enough to math at the moment.

“Uh, FRIDAY, what time is it?”

“9:43.”

Ok, so that was more than twelve hours. Twelve plus, like three. Whatever that number was.

_Oh my god, it’s fifteen, Peter._

Fifteen hours without food was probably not the best thing for a growing teenager with fast metabolism. Guess he would have to fix that…

Somehow.

There was nothing like eating dinner at nearly ten at night. Nearly ten, whatever time it was now. Peter knew his way around well enough to know where to find food. It didn’t take much effort to sneak his way to the kitchen area with his phone in hand. For no apparent reason really.

Out of all the things that Mr. Stark ate, it mostly consisted of ice cream, cereal, and coffee. And you didn’t eat coffee, you drank it. Despite that type of appetite, there was all sorts of random cooking items around that weren’t used. Peter wasn’t the best at cooking anything, but he could do it if he really wanted to. He only knew how to fix like, two things though.

Noodles and eggs. 

All things considered, it probably wouldn’t end out too well. He was pretty sure he was supposed to be writing his Spanish essay and he wasn’t...doing that. If Mr. Stark walked in right now, it would be awkward. Not that Mr. Stark would have any reason to come walking in anytime soon. But in order to keep it that way, he had to keep the volume to a minimum. Which meant no pans because he was so uncoordinated that he could probably drop them at least twice.

That left Peter with one choice. Google easy to make food. And when that didn’t work, it was straight to Pinterest.

Praise MJ for putting Pinterest on his phone. He couldn’t remember what she needed it for, or how she managed to convince him to download that app, but thank goodness for it. Quick and easy access to everything, hehe~

Peter doesn’t know what led him to five ingredient cookie dough recipes, but here he was. It seemed easy enough, even though it wouldn’t be too fitting, but screw it because he was hungry and it sounded so good right now! Fixing up a pint of cookie dough took Peter seven minutes. And you know what, he didn’t care. It didn’t even have chocolate chips in it!

Because despite all of the baking stuff in the compound, there was no chocolate anywhere!

And no, he wasn’t upset about it. Plain cookie dough was still just as good!

Peter sat on the couch and scrolled through Instagram and sunk a spoon into his cookie dough. He just gnawed on it for a while, getting really distracted by watching videos of people making _real_ food. What was his life? This was just sad. 

The phone battery on his phone went down as the hours passed. And about four hours of doing a whole lot of being a teenager, he hadn’t even gotten far in his snack. Well, the fifth batch of it. Peter didn’t even notice how much time had passed, wide awake and possibly getting a sugar high. 

“...Why are you up at one in the morning?”

Peter flinched when he heard the new voice. Not new, exactly, but to the area it was. He turned to find the source of the voice and saw none other than Mr. Stark staring at him with an empty coffee mug.

“It’s the weekend.”

“So it is.” Mr. Stark looked like a mess. Like he didn’t get enough coffee today--or yesterday since it was now Saturday. “Why are _you_ doing up, though? If anything, I’d expect you to be long crashed by trying to write that Spanish essay.”

What was with that stupid essay?!

“I couldn’t sleep.”

Not a complete lie. Based on the look on Mr. Stark’s face, it didn’t seem like he fully believed him. Or maybe he did and Peter was too dumb to notice. 

He felt pretty dumb right now.

“Ok, why’s that?”

Peter pursed his lips together before his instinctual response came out. 

“Hungry,” he said simply, holding up his fifth bowl of cookie dough as if to prove his point. The look on Mr. Stark’s face was of complete...surprise. 

“Why are you eating--no, what are you eating?”

“Cookie dough.”

“Why is it plain?”

“‘Cause you don’t have chocolate, ya stupid.” Peter didn’t even think about what he said as he looked at Mr. Stark for a reaction. “It’s still good, though. Don’t worry about it.”

He wasn’t sure what happened next. 

Mr. Stark had gone for his cookie dough and then Peter had whined--or yelled--at him to get his own. Then there was Mr. Stark talking to FRIDAY about putting on a new pot of coffee. Peter had yawned throughout whatever Mr. Stark had blabbered about when he was basically arguing with his AI but then he stuffed himself with more cookie dough. Mr. Stark went for his bowl again and this time Peter let him take it. And after that, there was a discussion about sleep patterns...

Ok, so he did know what happened next. Just not the order.

He was fairly certain it was in that one.

“Kid, it is 1:30. That is bedtime.”

“But you aren’t going to sleep.”

“Yeah. It’s bedtime for _you._ ”

Now, Peter was pretty positive Mr. Stark was trying to get him to go to bed. And, deep down, Peter was pretty sure that it wasn’t working. He wasn’t feeling tired at all.

“I’m not tired.”

“And?”

This was another reason why it wasn’t working.

“Look, teenagers need a ton of sleep, right? So, even if not tired, you should still do that.” Mr. Stark sounded like he wasn’t even convincing himself. Hell, his face looked like that. “Ugh, FRIDAY, how do you make teenagers fall asleep?”

“There are several methods to get a teenager to get sleepy. Most articles on the web say that Nyquil works really well for it.”

Nyquil? Hey, May had given him that when he was sick and couldn’t fall asleep. It didn’t seem to work since the spider bite, though.

“Great, just what we don’t have.”

“Mr. Stark, I think you should look into getting some.” Mr. Stark gave him an eyebrow raise when it came to that. “It’s better to take that than to stay up all night and day with unlimited coffee.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s great.” 

Mr. Stark got up from the couch and went back to the kitchen. Peter followed the man with his eyes and watched as he searched through the many cabinets for something. It went on for a while, with Mr. Stark cursing and dropping a whole bunch of stuff out of it. When he tried to catch whatever he dropped, only more stuff fell out. 

The whole scene was kinda funny to watch.

_Wow, Ironman is bad at keeping stuff together as he looks for stuff._

When his mentor pulled something out of the top cupboard with an _aha_ , Peter blinked and saw that the man was standing on a stool with Benadryl in his hand. 

Benadryl? What the hell was Benadryl for?

“Kid, do normal drugs work on you?”

“Not for long.” They did for a little bit, but most of the time that little bit was thirty seconds to a minute. “If I want an effect I take a whole bunch.”

Mr. Stark nodded before jumping down from the stool. He grabbed his empty coffee mug and turned on the sink and filled it with water. Once it was filled to the brim, Mr. Stark opened the bottle of Benadryl and held it over the cup. He glanced at Peter before looking down at the item he was hovering over the mug. When he looked back at Peter, he nodded his head before dumping the sleep drug into the water. Peter watched the whole process unfold with glassy eyes.

Why?

Mr. Stark stopped after about ten drops of the stuff. He sighed before walking back to the couch with the cup and handed it to Peter.

“Will you die if you drink this?”

He shook his head.

“Good.” Mr. Stark held out of the cup for Peter to take. “Drink it.”

Being Peter, he didn’t even hesitate before taking the coffee mug and drinking the whole thing. No questions asked.

Mr. Stark looked at him expectantly once he finished. It looked like he was waiting for him to keel over any second from exhaustion. That was not gonna happen. Now that he thought about it, this was all so lame. Mr. Stark was trying to send him off to bed like a kid! How unfair!

“Mr. Stark. I’m not going to bed.”

“Why?!” 

“Uh, hello?! Not tired!” He set down his empty sleep-drug free cup and crossed his arms. “Look, man. I had a really stressful day today and you being in my grill has not been helping.” Mr. Stark looked almost amused at what he was saying. 

“So, you’re cranky?”

“No, I’m mad! I’m mad at the fact that I messed up on my patrol yesterday and that I was all doped up and forgetful and stuff. And then there was that stupid English final that got moved up and the stupid Spanish essay that came up out of nowhere and then I messed up on my web fluid! My web fluid! I think I messed up my body by inhaling it after I made it freaking water vapor.” As he kept on going, his rant started becoming more like a sob story. “Oh my god, I suck, Mr. Stark.”

Mr. Stark’s eyes were wide as saucers. From what, Peter didn’t know and he really didn’t care. This was his moment to be emotionally upset.

“Hey, It’s fine. Everyone messes up.” Peter growled as he squinted his eyes, making Mr. Stark flinch slightly. “Ok, ok, not what you want to hear, but completely true nonetheless.”

“But I still suck!”

“Oh my god, fine! You suck!”

The way Peter’s mood plummeted so fast had to match the way Mr. Stark regretted his word choices.

“That’s so mean!” Was he crying? Oh my lord, he was crying now. “All I want is support but no one gives it to me! And I wanted cookie dough too but you took that away!”

“Ok, ok. Uh--I’ll make you more--”

“I don’t want more!”

“Ok, we can change it up!” Peter wasn’t even aware of the fact that he was feeling moody as all else and freaking _crying_. “Um--uh--FRIDAY? Help!” 

He was asking FRIDAY for help? Was he not good enough to offer him help now because he screwed up by sucking so bad at everything!

“What do you mean mood swings?!”

Oh, look at that, he already got his help! As if Peter didn’t feel bad already.

“Well, it seems as if Mr. Parker’s body has high amounts of hormonal imbalance, which causes mood swings.”

“Why is he unbalanced?”

“Stress, Boss.” That made sense. In fact, it made the most amount of sense that Peter couldn’t stop himself from crying happy tears. Well, not that there was much of a difference anymore.

“It makes so much sense.” He was sobbing now and Mr. Stark looked like he was on the verge of a panic attack.

“God, Benadryl, kick in now.”

“Don’t order me around!”

“Ok, I’m sorry.” Mr. Stark scooted a little bit away from Peter as the teenager sobbed. Whether it was from the sadness, anger, stress, or small amount of happiness, he didn’t know anymore! What he did know was that this would be embarrassing when he was aware of what was happening. “Um, FRIDAY, how do I help him calm down?”

He was still asking her for help!

“Wear him out.”

He already was.

“Ok. Uh, hey, kid?” Peter rubbed his face with his hands and looked right at Mr. Stark. “Let’s...let’s play questions again!

 

Happy knew the kid had been a little stressed out when he went to pick him up on Friday. That much was obvious due to his many voice cracks as he was rambling about on the car ride over to the Compound. While Happy knew he should’ve asked if the kid was alright, he decided not too. He figured he could leave Tony to deal with a stressed-out kid.

And as the dawn of a new day came, he realized his mistakes at what he had done and rushed over to the Compound. 

He was expecting the building to not be standing, so thank god it was. When he went inside of search for Tony and the kid, he allowed himself to calm down just a bit. Yes, he had left his very anxiety-proud friend with a stressed-out teenager. That was dumb. But, it could’ve worked out, possibly?

So when Happy entered the penthouse area of the compound and saw the kitchen lights still on with a pot of untouched coffee on the counter, he couldn’t help but be confused. 

When he had walked over to the couch after he heard a very human-like groan, he didn’t know what he was expecting. Certainly not the two suspects of the hour passed out, with Tony on the floor and Peter sprawled out on the couch. 

While it wasn’t what he expected, he wasn’t disappointed. Happy couldn’t help himself as he pulled out his phone and snapped a quick picture of the scene before leaving.

What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, moody teens!
> 
> Believe it or not, I actually based Peter on one of my friend's after a surgery she had. And, yeah, a little bit off of me too. But I'm fifteen so I know how emotion's can be when you're stressed, ok.
> 
> So when I first started writing this chapter it was going to be two, technically. But I just couldn't find a way to separate it so instead it's just one really freaking long one. Which is great and everything but man it takes a long time to write.
> 
> Anyways, there's a bit of plot and bonding in this chapter. I wanted to include both somehow and this just kinda happened. Not saying it wasn't planned or anything except for the end. That was me writing on a whim, so thankfully, it was short.
> 
> Thank you guys so much for all the Kudos and Comments! It's honestly so great having so much response to this and it makes me so happy!
> 
> As always, feel free to let me know what you guys think!


	5. The Meeting Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While not the CEO of his own company, Tony was still in charge of a lot of the plans and changes that came with the industry. His signature was on the paper, therefore he couldn’t escape some of these things even if he tried. The thing is, he was very good at avoiding things he did not want to go to. Specifically, anything that required sitting in a room a few hours talking business. Even though he sat in his lab for hours on end each day, for some reason he didn’t like going to meetings?
> 
> Something about that didn’t quite make sense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUESS WHO'S BACK BACK BACK  
> BACK AGAIN!
> 
> It's my birthday so I figured I'd do something I love. Happy 16 to me!

The one thing Pepper was always certain about was that Tony was a complicated person. He had always been that way, ever since they first met. Back then, of course, he had obviously been way different from what he was now. Stuck up, egotistical, womanizer at large. Now, Pepper could say that he was no longer a womanizer.

That really wasn’t too fair on Tony’s part, but it was true. He wasn’t as stuck up and snobby as he used to be in the early days of the two knowing each other, but there could still be those occasion days. Or perhaps she was just misinterpreting his stubbornness for snobbiness? Try all she want, alas she could only manage Tony when he was being stubborn half of the time. Snobbiness was Happy’s level of department, and even he wasn’t the best at that.

Over the years, their relationship had certainly...developed. It was both a good thing and a bad thing. Both Pepper and Tony had their ups and downs when it came to each other. With Tony, it seemed like he either had way more ups at one point and then way too many downs at another, while as Pepper usually was split down the middle. That made staying together for as long as they had a long and difficult process. 

When it came down to it, they didn’t even stay together this whole time.

There had been plenty of little breaks that they’d taken, but in the end, they always got back together. It always seemed to work out that way. The last instance had been different. 

It had been completely mutual.

Pepper wasn’t sure if that’s how Tony made it out to be or not, but it was true. Both suggested it was time for a break from each other. Most of the time, it was her who wanted one. The stress of Tony’s continuous throwing himself into danger became too much sometimes. The fact that he was the one who brought up the idea of them taking a break in the first place caught her off guard, to say the least.

He suggested it, she agreed to it, they both made it happen.

Although it was a thought she never wanted to have, Pepper thought that their last case would be their last time. Their last time deciding to call it off momentarily--to get some space. Their last time ever truly being... _together_.

She didn’t know what had caused Tony to get thrown so off center the first two months after their plausible breakup. She never saw him or heard about him. He was no longer taking apart in the Avengers, so she knew it wasn’t that. 

Until the bombing happened.

The news of the Sokovia Accords was something that hadn’t been publicly released before the bombing had taken place during the signing. Pepper had known about it before then, however. There were many insights she had into the governmental situations in the US and elsewhere. The whole act had taken her by surprise, to say the least. She hadn’t been expecting it. That said, most of the world hadn’t either. But they had welcomed the change.

Although she hated to admit it now, Pepper had too. And then she saw what consequences it caused first hand. 

Hearing about what happened to Tony almost broke Pepper. Seeing what happened to him actually did. He had been an absolute mess after this whole Siberia incident. Every single time she asked about what happened, he wouldn’t answer. Not fully, anyway. He’d always say that it was nothing, that what happened there was just an unfortunate accident. Pepper felt like she should try and believe him if she didn’t know that Tony had told Rhodes a different story. But she did, so she didn’t.

While she was busy trying to continue running Stark Industries as the government had a hay day about the Berlin fight, Tony became a bigger priority. Rhodes had been helping a lot, she knew, but his presence also made things worse. His legs were something Tony took personally. Happy was also stepping in more, in ways that Pepper hadn’t been so sure about. In the end, though, she was the only one who had been able to constantly be there. 

To constantly be at the ready for a phone call, a conversation, venting, anything that Tony needed. Even if she wasn’t right there with him and even if he didn’t admit when he needed help. 

They got back together two months after Siberia. 

They both knew it had been coming on for a while. Tony needed Pepper and Pepper had missed Tony. And, she needed him too. This time, Pepper knew that they would be staying together. For good this time. 

Pepper had been keeping up with the accords as best as she could. The situation with Ross was sticky. He’d shove something in Tony’s face once a month that he would never look at which gave her authority to do so. It was like Ross was trying to alter the accords constantly. The things he was adding just seemed, unlawful. And Pepper would mention them to Tony of course, but he never did anything about it. That wasn’t a problem, though.

He refused to sign these new versions of the Sokovia Accords. Therefore, they didn’t go into power. It pissed Ross off to be sure, but it kept things the same.

That made Tony feel good about himself, pissing Ross off. And Pepper couldn’t say she liked the context, but she was glad Tony was happy. The process continued for a little while until she was told to gather up a ton of reporters for a random reason. Pepper, obviously, didn’t do that without any backstory. 

Tony wouldn’t give it to her.

Instead, she did her own digging and then Tony changed her task to a Press Conference. She still didn’t do it without any details. So, then he told her.

He was making Spiderman an Avenger.

Now, Pepper wasn’t stupid. She knew who Spiderman was. The new guy, a rookie, who went to Berlin to help attempt to bring in Captain Steve Rogers. In his day to day life, he did the little things in Queens and sometimes travel a little into the suburbs. Not the most likely candidate if she were to be honest.

When Tony told her that the Spiderman was actually a Spiderkid she was silent. Fifteen years old. Fifteen. Years. Old. She had mixed emotions about that--who wouldn’t--but she scheduled the conference anyways. Something about Tony’s mindset when talking about how it would help the kid learn how to keep himself safe convinced her it wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Then that very Press Conference ended up announcing that she and Tony were engaged. Which had happened on the whim. The kid had made some MMMMmature choice apparently and ditched the event. Pepper was pretty sure Tony hadn’t told him what this was, but she couldn’t complain too much. Something deep down told her that one day she and Tony would get married. It just made sense. She just...didn’t think it would be so soon.

_Like ten years was so soon._

Never in her life was Pepper expecting to actually meet the kid who was a superhero. She was too busy with everything that the thought just wouldn’t ever cross her mind. She also didn’t expect to know the kid’s actual identity. But, here she was.

In all fairness on her part, it was entirely Tony’s fault she found out. He had left hours after their engagement announcement--the day of the supposed Avenger announcement--to go to some apartment in Queens. That was not the norm. Not for him.

She hadn’t known he was gone until FRIDAY had told her about it. The rest had been a ton of questions and a lot of vague answers. 

Tony didn’t bring it up when he got back, so she didn’t ask.

The first time Pepper met the kid, he was Peter Parker. 

At that point, she hadn’t known who he was. Just a kid in her fiance’s lab with goo-goo eyes. Peter was Tony’s intern, so he said, when Pepper first laid her eyes on him. He was young, fifteen years old--had to be. Pepper was a smart woman, so learning of the intern’s age was the same as Spiderman was a pretty big giveaway. At least, Pepper thought so. She didn’t ask him about anything relating to the topic, however, despite really wanting to. 

Surely, it would be too much of a coincidence. Too far fetched, even for Tony. Especially for Tony. But at the same time...maybe it wasn’t.

The second meeting, he was, once again, Peter Parker. She hadn’t met him face to face, however. More like she snooped in on a conversation that he and Tony were having. Something about responsibility and web...fluid? Needless to say, that had been pretty much a dead give-away to Pepper’s suspicions. Pepper chose to keep to herself about the whole thing, not thinking too much about it. It wasn’t the direst information in the world to know. So she knew who Spiderman was, no big deal there. Unlike some people, Pepper knew how to keep secrets.

Peter would remain just being an intern in Pepper’s eyes. She didn’t know too much about the superhero world except for the small part that she was in with Iron Man. Why start now? In her mind, she didn’t need to let anyone know about her knowledge. That was a surprisingly high struggle to do. 

People loved to gossip and they just assumed she had it. There was a ton of articles about Spiderman theories that were in her pile of work. While she had never been certain, Pepper was pretty sure Tony had put them in her stack of papers, not wanting to read them himself. As to why he didn’t want to read them, she didn’t know. Every article she found, another article she would give over to the spider himself. 

That’s how it started, really. Their relationship.

A whole bunch of spreading of stupid fan theories. It wasn’t just Pepper handing them over to Peter, either. He found a way to give her send Iron Man conspiracy theories throughout the days that he was at the compound. The papers had initially shocked her but turned out to be amusing nonetheless. She can’t say she remembers how they started a competition to see who could find the most ridiculous superhero theory out there. There was no small amount of crazy theories out there on the internet. It just took a matter of time to find out which one was the most outlandish. Peter had much more spare time to look up theories than Pepper did, but she was able to find some good ones. Impressive ones.

Admittedly, they all ended up turning into only Iron Man theories. There was simply way more opportunities for the two of them to bond over that than Spiderman. Bonding, yes, that’s what they were doing. Whether or not Peter knew if Pepper had him figured out, it wouldn’t seem that he cared all that much. He was much too concerned in why the entire internet thought Tony didn’t have social media because he wasn’t actually Iron Man, but rather Happy was.

_“This isn’t even close to being believable. Happy isn’t badass enough.”_

_“He was once a boxer.”_

_“What? Really?!”_

It was those moments that made Pepper really glad that she came to the compound as often as she did. And even more grateful that she just so happened to choose the days she knew Peter would be there. What? She was the CEO of Stark Industries, finding out Tony’s schedule and his _intern’s_ wasn’t hard.

Of course, Tony didn’t know that Pepper and Peter knew each other. Everything they did was strictly behind his back. Not for any real reason, it just happened that way.

That fact always hovered in Pepper’s mind somewhere. Tony was completely unaware. There could be some sort of advantage from that. Something that would cause Pepper to get Tony to do things that he was supposed to do but ignored because she wasn’t constantly there to haggle him. Peter was, needless to say, over at the compound at convenient times.

He was also pretty unsuspecting when it came to anything Stark Industries business related. 

While not the CEO of his own company, Tony was still in charge of a lot of the plans and changes that came with the industry. His signature was on the paper, therefore he couldn’t escape some of these things even if he tried. The thing is, he was very good at avoiding things he did not want to go to. Specifically, anything that required sitting in a room a few hours talking business. Even though he sat in his lab for hours on end each day, for some reason he didn’t like going to meetings?

Something about that didn’t quite make sense. 

There was a business meeting that she had to attend regarding the new location for Stark Industries in New York. And as much as she really wanted to be there, she told the administrators that Tony would go instead. She, logically, told him about this for a month straight leading up into meeting itself. With the constant reminder being thrown in his face, Tony agreed that he would remember to go.

She still didn’t trust him, however. The day of said meeting, she texted Tony at least thirty times to remind him about it. Each one was replied with _I got it._ Even if he said he would go, Pepper had a lot of doubts about it. He was good at getting out of things. Luckily for her, it was a Thursday, which meant a certain someone would be at the compound today.

Pepper Potts: Hello, Peter. I want to know if there’s something you could do for me?

She sent the text while he was in school, so she wasn’t expecting to get a reply as fast as she did. It only took two minutes before her phone beeped with a new message.

Peter Parker: Yeah I’ll try

Pepper couldn’t help but smile at that. 

Pepper Potts: Alright. Well, there’s a business meeting that Tony’s supposed to attend today. I’ve hounded him for a month now, and although he said he’d go, I doubt he actually will. I want you to make sure he attends. Can you do that?

Peter Parker: Seems easy enough

Pepper Potts: You haven’t known Tony as long as I have. It’ll take stubbornness and willpower, things I’m running low on right now.

Peter Parker: I’m never running low on those! I’ll do my best Ms. Potts

She knew this was a good idea. Have the intern help her out with her job. It was perfect and Tony wouldn’t suspect a thing.

Pepper Potts: Thank you, Peter.

Just like that, the problem had practically resolved itself. Pepper spent the rest of her day dealing with things that didn’t require a ton of signatures or stressing about Tony. Wedding planning. She didn’t do too much of that, admittedly. Just small glances at certain things that both she and Tony would have to look into.

A lot of it had been reading a bunch of articles about how to plan a wedding. Pepper had planned many events in the past, but all public. And certainly not a wedding. A running trend she found ended up being that the bride was more enthusiastic about planning the details than the groom from all the stories a bunch of women were sharing. So nothing new. When reading became a bunch of repeated advice, Pepper moved on to--probably--the thing she was most excited for. Picking a dress. 

There were so many types of wedding dresses out there, so she had a very wide variety to look at. Pepper remembers how she had wanted to wear her mom’s when she was younger, but she ended up growing to be quite the bit taller than her. There was such thing as altering a dress, but it usually required taking some off rather than putting some on. Besides, Pepper was fine looking from scratch. There was something rather relaxing about looking a ton of dresses. The process made her think about things that weren’t related to her job. Things about the future.

One day, she would be wearing a dress that would somewhat resemble one of the ones in the pictures. She would walk down an aisle and Tony would be at the end of it. They’d commit their lives together. And someday after that, passed the unplanned, who knows what would happen. Someday, she knew, Tony would cease being Earth’s Defender. He’d be allowed to be himself, finally. Maybe then, they might decide to start a family of their own. Tony had never talked about that once with her, for reasons she knew too well. He was scared of the responsibility. But, he’d been scared of a different kind of responsibility before, and time had changed that. Time could change that too.

Even if it didn’t, it was fun to think about the future. From all this hardship and destruction, it was hard to see how things would turn out. If they would turn out ok. It was strange to see how, so far, things were getting better.

These things rarely happened, and when they did, they hardly lasted.

Pepper’s mind snapped back to reality once the screen of her laptop dimmed. It was giving off a sign that it would enter sleep mode if not touched soon. Pepper didn’t stop it from happening, closing the laptop herself. She had done enough dress looking for today. The redhead sat back in her chair and closed her eyes, letting her mind go empty for a second. It was so peaceful, with all the quiet.

She could get used to it.

*ring* *ring*

Looks like she wouldn’t get to. 

The woman let out a sigh before looking to where her phone was. It was ringing on vibrate currently. Whenever she got sick of a bunch of people calling her, she’d mute her phone. Looks like she forgot muting was one step after vibrate. She took the phone in her hands and looked to see who was calling her.

Peter Parker.

With no hesitation, Pepper answered the call. “Hello?”

_”Uh, hi, Ms. Potts.”_

“Peter? Why are you calling me?” She wasn’t upset at the notion, just slightly caught off guard. “Did something happen?”

_”Yeah, kinda. So...um, I don’t think Mr. Stark is going to be attending that meeting.”_

Pepper froze. Of course it wouldn’t go smoothly.

“What did he do this time?”

_”Well, it started off really well. I mean, I almost forgot to remind him about his meeting and when I did he was all like how’d you know and I didn’t know how to respond so I just said it was marked on his calendar? I thought he bought it but I’m not sure. I also didn’t know what time you said the thing started so I just kinda, watched him until he said he was going but I didn’t believe him so I told him I was gonna watch him leave? He called me his chaperone and then--”_

“Peter, what did he do?” 

Although hilarious, Peter’s babbling could go on forever if allowed. Right now, Pepper just wanted to figure out what Tony did to avoid this meeting.

_”Yeah so...he locked me in a closet.”_

...What?

“What?”

_“He locked me in a closet when we were walking out of the compound. I don’t...really understand why?”_

God, Tony was such a child. Pepper always believed that he had grown from his immature tendencies; that he just had a weird personality. Clearly, she was very wrong! Did her fiance really lock a teenager in a closet to avoid being taken to a meeting?! Really?! In the most depressing thought she could think of, Pepper couldn’t bring herself to be that surprised. It sounded like something Tony would do. 

“Ok...” She was gonna have a talk with him later. “You’re in a closet...by the exit?”

_”Yeah.”_

Easy enough. “Ok, I’m gonna come get you.”

_“Wh--you don’t have to do that...”_

“I do. Trust me.” It was her fault that the kid was locked in the closet in the first place.

She wasn’t that far from the compound anyways. It wasn’t like it was out of her way. But in the end, it still took her a while to actually arrive. It was a Thursday afternoon in New York, traffic was not fun. 

By the time she had arrived, Pepper had allowed her thoughts to spread themselves thin. So maybe getting Peter to do her job wasn’t the best idea. Good to know. She hadn’t expected Tony to be so _Tony_ about being forced to go to a meeting. It was literally one meeting. Knowing where Peter would be wasn’t too hard to figure out. For one, there weren’t many closets lying around the compound, much less near an exit. Second off, FRIDAY could just tell her where he was.

He ended up being a lot closer to the garage’s exit than she originally expected. Tony must’ve panicked or something, thinking that he would have to be business responsible once more. Pepper, led by FRIDAY, made her way to the closet that Peter was in and unlocked the door. The kid was just sitting on the floor, on his phone scrolling through social media. He jumped a bit when Pepper had opened the door, clearly not expecting her despite the fact she said she’d be coming.

“Why didn’t you just kick the door down?” She couldn’t help but ask the question, knowing full well that Peter was capable of it.

“Mr. Stark threatened me with property damage if I did,” he responded simply while getting up. His response caused Pepper to sigh. “How’d you even know where I was?”

“FRIDAY can be ever so helpful.” Pepper smirked slightly at the way Peter’s face lit up in realization. “Speaking of, FRIDAY, can you tell me where Tony is?” Like hell was he getting out of this one. 

“I’m sorry, but all except for the Boss are unauthorized to know of his location directly,” the AI said, causing another sigh to come from the woman’s mouth.

Was he really hiding from them?

“Ok, is he in this building then?”

“Yes.”

That was good enough for her.

Pepper looked at Peter, whose eyes were constantly moving around the are they were in for some reason. It looked like he was analyzing something. While her attention was originally directed at Peter, she couldn’t help it when it moved from him to the closet he was previously in. Was there pillows in there?

_He made another hiding hole?_

When they had first met, Tony had been a real handful. He wasn’t responsible in the slightest and hating attending anything that he found boring or a waste of time. Originally a joke, Tony started creating hiding spaces in random supply closets around Stark Industries when they were in California. He brought that habit with him to New York too, having many in the tower. She thought that he grew out of it by now. 

Obviously not.

“Peter, I hate to ask you something again--” Especially after what recently happened “--but can you help me find my immature fiance?” 

Peter’s attention snapped to Pepper in an instant, his eyes showing how his brain was processing the information she just spoke.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah.” He looked around the room again, this time up at the security cameras. “Is there a surveillance area in this place?”

“From what I saw of the plans, yes.” It was located on the top floor somewhere. She had never been in it herself, but she knew it was there. “Why?”

“Well, we can look for his location on the cameras.” 

Oh...Oh! Pepper internally smacked herself for not putting that together. Of course it would be that, it was fairly self-explanatory. 

“Alright. Let’s do that. I know it's on the top, so at least we have a general location.”

As it would turn out, general location still wasn’t enough to easily find the surveillance area. The fourth floor was FFFbig so naturally, it wouldn’t be the easiest of things to find. It was simply just a little harder than Pepper originally anticipated.

Both her and Peter had split up searching the penthouse layer of the compound. He took the living portion side while Pepper took the everything else side. That included a whole bunch of random stuff, really. Honestly, nothing that impressive other than Tony’s lab and some other abandoned workstations. The redhead had a feeling that what she was looking for would be over here. It only made sense. 

While she knew the surveillance room would be over here, it didn’t make finding it an easier task. In fact, it just made it a bit more stressful. Taunting, almost. She almost wanted to call Peter over here just to help her look for it, but she kept herself from doing so. Tony could be hiding anywhere up here for all she knew. He wasn’t brave enough to venture down to the lower stories in case he’d get caught by her or one of the employees or trainees saw him and alerted her directly. Yes, she had a very good relationship with those who worked at the compound. Most of the time, that was an advantage.

Pepper walked down a hallway towards a series of storage rooms. She had actually been in these before, while they were still under construction. A lot of the arrangement of things got all messed up in the final version, so for all she knew, what she was looking for could be in one of them. To her surprise, before she even touched the door, a metal cover came sliding down in front of it, blocking her access to it. When she turned to the other rooms, a similar event occurred.

That was...not normal. Only FRIDAY caused things like this, or protocols.

FRIDAY...

“FRIDAY, did you just close these doors?”

“Yes, Miss Boss.”

“Can you tell me why?”

“Boss does not want you to enter.”

Didn’t want her to enter? How did he even know that she was over here? “Did you alert him that I was over here?”

“No.”

Then how--

Pepper blinked once. Twice. Of course. The surveillance room. Tony was in the surveillance room! That’s how he knew where she was. He probably was blocking Peter from some stuff too, just watching them from his safe spot.

That sneaky, childish man.

Before Pepper could even move, her phone buzzed once more, indicating that she was getting a phone call. She didn’t even need to guess who was calling her.

“Yes, Peter?”

_“Ms. Potts I found it!”_

She hadn’t expected that to be what the call would be about. Not that she didn’t know what else it would be, but certainly not this. Wasn’t she in the right area and not Peter?

“You did? How?!”

_“Well I didn’t find it, I know where it is. I found the plans to the building.” Pepper couldn’t stop the small laugh that came from her lips. “They were updated last month, so I think they’re valid. It’s right by his lab. Like, twenty feet from it.”_

Pepper didn’t even hang up the phone before turning on her heels and running towards the lab. She had walked right past it! Peter’s talking was loud enough for Pepper to know that he was talking to her as she ran but she did not understand what he was saying. Getting into that room was all that she cared about right now.

When she reached the lab she made a mad dash to the right hallway. It was the only hallway there, therefore it was where the surveillance zone had to be. Twenty feet was a fair guesstimate. She didn’t even have to guess which door led to the room, with the one on the far right being swung open. Pepper ceased running instantly, creeping up to the door. How had she missed this when the door was wide open? As Pepper poked her head around the corner of the door and peered inside, her face fell into a frown.

The room was empty.

While it was no doubt the security room, it was free from who was supposed to be inside. Instead of Tony himself, there was a bunch of sticky notes left on the computer monitors, each spelling out a message:

_YOU’LL NEVER CATCH ME!_

Pepper scowled at the notes, bringing the phone that was still on call with Peter up to her ear.

“Meet me in the lab, we got an Iron Man to catch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear god it's been like, a whole month since I've updated. That's so disgusting and I'm so sorry that I kept you guys waiting for freaking ever! And I know it's a lame excuse, but I've been stupidly busy lately. I started school and all the sudden I had things to do because AP classes. Ok not really, it's actually math that's been taking my entire time but still, school. 
> 
> Anyways, how'd you guys like this chapter? As you can see by the title, it's a two-parter. I really love the concept of Peter and Pepper's relationship that the internet made up and I just wanted to introduce it right away. I also like how Pepper doesn't deal with Tony's laziness. Next chapter will basically be capture the flag but the flag is Tony and there's only one team and it consists of Peter and Pepper. So yay for that!
> 
> I don't know how my uploading schedule will continue and how consistent it will be. At the very least, one update a month. But I plan on having it be more than that, but you know, life can happen and throw stuff at you.
> 
> And guys, I like just had my sophomore homecoming and I brought it up to my sister and she legit started looking for the nearest Peter just to see if he'd ditch his date like in the movie. Oh man, it was so stupid and great at the same time. Also, some girl spiked the water so I'm sick now yaaaay! Kids are awesome!
> 
> Like always, let me know what you guys think! And sorry for this long note, my god.


	6. The Meeting Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No offense to Mr. Stark or anything, but he wasn’t the best at being productive. Not that Peter could talk or anything, but he felt that he was at least somewhat better than his mentor. Which was saying a lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully a good chapter for such a long wait hahaha...ha.

It’s never a good thing when an adult gets angry. They either go overboard and start yelling about nothing or let their emotions take them over completely and try to act calm and fail miserably. Girls were an even worse case. Not that they were really any different when they got angry from everyone else. They were just more extreme. Adult girls were somehow the worst ones out there.

Peter learned that the hard way. May was a special case, but he knew that a tempered woman was a force to be trifled with. Just any, really.

When Pepper told him to meet her in the lab, Peter could tell she was fuming. Just her tone of voice and how calmly she spoke her words. It was a clear indicator of anger. Not that he was too surprised at the fact. Mr. Stark seemed to constantly be driving either Happy or Pepper up the walls. Mostly Happy, though. While being practically ordered to go to the lab to _catch an Iron Man_ sounded fun, Peter doubted it would be. He was going to have to deal with a pissed off Pepper and a very childish Mr. Stark.

And then there was the entirety of getting to the lab. 

Peter knew where it was, he’d been there many times, but he was having a hard time getting there. It tied back to going on the hunt for the control room or whatever it was. For some reason, Peter thought it would be easy to find a secured room in the _Avengers_ Compound of all places. As it would turn out, it wasn’t. Whenever he got close to any spot that he hadn’t been to before, a door would close on him. Literally. Either the door to the room he was going into would close and lock, or some other door would slam shut from behind him. Now, that wasn’t really a problem, per se. It just was surprising every time it happened. Like, really surprising.

He totally didn’t jump every time a door creaked shut from behind him. He didn’t think the compound was haunted by a ghost of FRIDAY either. That was ridiculous. Just because she wasn’t responding to anything Peter said didn’t mean anything...

Right?

I mean, it is close to Halloween...

Nope, not thinking about it.

So far the highlight of his day was being locked in that closet. At least there he didn’t have to be exposed to the war that the compound was bound to be exposed to now that Pepperony was against each other.

Would it be absolutely hilarious and entertaining? Yes. Would he also fear for his life? Also yes.

Some could say Peter would be ridiculous for having a thought like that. He said otherwise. This was Tony Stark--AKA Iron Man--running away from his fiance/CEO of Stark Industries, Pepper Potts, in the highly techy and equipped Avengers Compound. How could that not be just a bit frightening?

Peter scampered his way to the lab, trying to ignore the bad feeling in his stomach. It wasn’t even for him. The feeling was for Mr. Stark. Because Pepper sounded furious and Peter was sure that she might murder him if they found him. _When_ they found him. Whatever happened, if/when they found him. 

When Peter got to the lab, he came to a conclusion of what would happen to Mr. Stark if they successfully found him. He’d probably die once Pepper laid eyes on him. Like, he’d just fall to the ground and accept death at that point. Peter certainly would.

Pepper looked _pissed._ He didn’t even see her face, just her stance screamed rage.

“Is...everything ok?” His question caused Pepper to do a full one-eighty and spin to face him. It happened so fast that Peter was surprised how her hair didn’t cause her whiplash.

“No, but it will be.” Her response caused Peter’s face to go blank for a few seconds, trying to think of what she meant by that. “I made it so that FRIDAY has the surveillance room on alert for anyone who goes in there, just in case Tony tries to sneak back inside.”

Hold it, Mr. Stark was _in_ the security room?! Was that why all those doors were just randomly shutting on him?

Peter, honestly, didn’t know what to say to that. He hadn’t known about it until Pepper just told him. Judging by the way her face changed when she looked at him, she must’ve just realized he didn’t know about her discovery until recently.

Very recently.

“Mr. Stark was--”

“Yes, yes he was.” 

Well, that explained a lot of things. God, he felt almost stupid now. Of course it would be Mr. Stark controlling crap from the security room than a ghost possessing FRIDAY to make her close everything on him. That made way more sense. 

“But...he isn’t now?” Peter already knew the answer to his question, but he didn’t want to make it obvious that he was surprised about said fact. 

“No, he isn’t.” Pepper didn’t seem too pleased at that. “He’s stuck in the compound, though. FRIDAY’s automatically alerted to telling me when Tony leaves.” That was a strange custom to have. The sad thing was, it seemed completely necessary. 

No offense to Mr. Stark or anything, but he wasn’t the best at being productive. Not that Peter could talk or anything, but he felt that he was at least somewhat better than his mentor. Which was saying a lot.

Peter wasn’t too sure when he stopped listening to whatever Pepper was saying to him, but he knew it was long enough for the woman to snap her fingers in his face at least five times until he noticed. He blinked once he did, feeling an odd sense of deja vu, before opening his ears up to what the woman was saying to him. Which was necessary, as she wasn’t saying anything at the moment currently. She just wanted his attention. Or maybe she was saying something and Peter still wasn’t listening to her. That was pretty valid. He could say that he was making himself listen to the world around him, but that wouldn’t mean he actually did that. It was a hobby he picked up in school courtesy of MJ. 

Maybe it wasn’t the best of hobby to pick up from her--if any was good. MJ wasn’t a terrible person or anything, but some of the things she did were questionable. Like, she did an odd amount of people watching. And then she’d draw people that she watched just for fun. The weird thing about that was that she was good at drawing. Did she get good off of drawing people she just randomly stared at? Not to say that it wasn’t a cool skill to have, just being able to draw something when looking at it pretty nicely, but it was still weird.

Then again, Peter people watched too. But nobody knew that...

“...someday karma is going to come back at him, if not today.” Oh crap. So Pepper had apparently been talking this entire time while Peter was thinking about MJ and he missed almost everything she said. Fantastic. “At least it wasn’t an accords meeting...” Looking closely at Pepper--not actually closely--Peter noticed that she wasn’t really looking at him. It was like she was ranting to herself. “Yes, I know that, but we have to be grateful for one thing at a time. Things are moving along slowly, you know nothing has been the same for a while now.” Ok, he took it back. Definitely not a self-rant. She was definitely talking to someone.

...Was she on the phone? There wasn’t anything up to her ear so...probably not? But there was a whole bunch of weird ways to communicate with people. Maybe she was using Bluetooth or something.

“Whatever he’s up to, I’ll find out.” Her eyes were locked with Peter’s as she said that. 

Something told him that he wasn’t going to have much say in this matter. Whatever matter that was. Finding Mr. Stark was obviously the main goal, but there was no way that’d be easy. What a weird day. Peter had a feeling that this day was just going to get even weirder once the search began. 

Needless to say, it was. Not that it was a bad thing, by any means.

In the following minutes after Pepper had finished her phone call, planning began. Planning for what? Oh, just how to lock down the entire compound without Mr. Stark noticing. No big deal. That being said, the plan didn’t actually make much sense when it came down to it. The main purpose was to keep Iron Man inside of his own building so how successful could it actually be? Well as it turns out, it was very easy to if one were to have a _Blackmail Protocol_. An actual thing, really.

Apparently throughout their many years, Pepper and Mr. Stark had kept records on either embarrassing or just downright shocking things the other has done. Then they decided to make a protocol--an actual protocol--where they could upload this information to the internet for the world to see as blackmail if one of them was pissing each other off. Mr. Stark had a bigger list of stuff against him, no doubt, but it was still a weird thing. 

Peter honestly couldn’t believe Pepper hadn’t already revealed some of Mr. Stark’s secrets yet. She had a literal protocol for it! And yes, he was caught up on that fact so he had to keep on repeating the phrase in his head over and over again. It was just so weird. These were actual people, with a functioning relationship. 

How?! 

The only somewhat romantic relationship he had ended up with him fighting his date’s father!

Talk about unfair.

Getting over that fact, it turned out locking down the compound ended up being way easier than expected. Yeah, ok, so it was a government facility and whatnot, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Pepper ended up doing her protocol thingy and it just...happened. No questions asked. Not even FRIDAY said anything about it. It seemed a little too easy.

“Um...” He really had no idea what he was supposed to make out of this situation. “So do we just...wait now?”

Pepper turned and gave him a look at his question. “Funny if you think it’ll be that easy.”

Well good.

“Uh, ok, what exactly are we going to...do?”

Technically, they could just wait until Mr. Stark gave up from attempting to get out of the building.

“We hunt him down.” 

Oh, well that’s cool too.

“Hunt him down?”

“Yes.” Props to Pepper for the fact that she sounded dead serious whilst speaking. She was talking about hunting down her fiance like an animal and she was completely sane about it. True love~ “That’s the only way this will end. Tony likes to avoid anything when he knows that he’s gonna be busted for something. He could be hiding in here for days if we let him--which we won’t. So, yes, we hunt him down.”

Nothing like hunting down your mentor on a Thursday afternoon and being casual about it.

_Wait did she say days?_

If this was a few months earlier it might've been a tad bit strange to be doing a task such as this. But it was October now, and technically speaking, they've known each other since May. The month, not his aunt, what sense would that make? The end of May at that. The point was, this was, in some sort of form, normal now? The most normal it was going to be when involved with someone else other than Mr. Stark. Pepper was more adult than him yet they were currently acting like children running around a chocolate factory hunting for a golden goose.

Boy was his imagination off today.

Pepper had hooked him up with comms before they had split out on their hunt. Actual communication comms that the _flipping_ Avengers used! If that wasn't awesome, what the heck was?! The purpose of that was to communicate with each other the ensure that they wouldn't just constantly avoid Mr. Stark on accident by going in a circle without knowing it. They were moving as a unit...ish. Man were the comms cool. Easily activated and literally everything was heard between him and Pepper when they wanted them to be heard. And sure, he wore one in Germany, but he wasn't taking it in. Peter was way too busy to appreciate the fact that the Avengers had a really great communication thingy.

So yeah, Avengers comms, pretty awesome stuff.

Currently, he had his turned off. It wasn’t like he was in need of Pepper at the moment, just waltzing around and hoping to find something that would lead him to Iron Man. Peter was pretty low on ideas as for where to take this. He’s never been the best at hunting people down if you could even call his attempts hunting. Most of the time he did anything relating to finding someone, it was more like, gain anything and everything possible and then just head out. That’s what it was like with the Vulture anyway. And maybe it didn’t work out the best for him _at_ first, but it ended up turning out just fine. 

Some part of Peter told him that he should stick to what he knows for this, but he knew that wouldn’t work. He wasn’t too familiar with the entire compound and it wasn’t like he could just ask FRIDAY either. She was on Mr. Stark’s side! At the same time, he couldn’t just go swinging around as Spiderman here. There was no way he could do that. And Pepper already said she was going to be taking care of the rest of the compound so Peter could work with the area he was familiar with. 

Familiar or not, he still didn’t know what to do. Which was a bust. Ms. Potts was counting on him and he was kinda walking around and praying. Obviously, that wasn’t working out for him. 

“Hey...FRIDAY?” Might as well try. 

“Yes, Peter?”

“Can you...tell me where Mr. Stark is?” 

There was a moment of unsettling silence. For a second, Peter actually thought that she would give him an answer that he would like.

“I’m sorry, but Boss does not want me to give that information away.”

Thought so. 

“Ok, thanks FRIDAY.”

“No problem, Peter.”

Even if he knew that would be the result, it still sucked. 

Peter walked around the entirety of the fourth floor in an aimless fashion. His basic mindset was just to find his mentor. How far would he go to hide from Pepper? Like honestly? He went to the lab, nothing. He went to the living area and found nothing, again. The kitchen had nothing either. He went to Mr. Stark’s room which was just a waste of time. Of course he wouldn’t be hiding there, that was an obvious spot. _Stupid_. 

What else could he do? 

Oh, duh---there was a million bathrooms in this place. Maybe he was hiding in one of them! It didn’t hurt to try, at least. The problem with his plan is that Peter didn’t know where all of them were. But he knew, from FRIDAY, that there was at least twenty on the floor. He started with what he knew. And you know, the same result. Nadda. 

Running low on options, Peter went to the last place he could think of. His room. Why would Mr. Stark be hiding out there? Peter didn’t know, honestly, but he was running out of places that he could think of right then. Needless to say, Mr. Stark was not there. Go figure. There was, however, a sticky note sticking to the door that Peter saw as he went to leave. That was...new. Plucking the sticky note off the door, Peter read the messy handwriting with a confused face.

_Running out of places to look? B)_

How the hell did he know?!

At this point, Peter was just befuddled--thank you MJ for teaching him that word. Mr. Stark knew what he was doing? Was FRIDAY telling him? What a cheater!

_My god this is so childish._

Peter left his room, sticky note in hand, and stopped after he shut the door. There was another sticky note sticking to the wall right outside the door. Peter couldn’t help but let out a huff. This was just stupid fast at this rate. He picked it off the wall and read it with the other note also in hand.

_If you quit now I promise I won’t judge you at all :)_

Another freaking smiley face. It was so on now. And where the heck was the nose with them? Clearly, he didn’t know how to write sticky notes.

“FRIDAY, can you tell Mr. Stark that his faces need to have noses in it? Thanks.” 

He didn’t even wait for any sort of reply from FRIDAY before moving out of the hallway. It was personal now. The man was totally toying with him and it was slightly infuriating.

“Boss says that your information is duly noted.”

“Did he actually say that?” 

“No, he actually said that there’s nothing wrong with his faces and that you’re young and your opinion is not taken into account.”

Wow, mature. 

“Tell him that I don’t care.”

“Done.”

What even was this?

Peter started making his way to the security room. That was his only hope at this point. And yes, he was aware of the Star Wars reference but he didn’t care. He knew where the security room was and, hopefully, he might be able to catch something. Specifically how Mr. Stark was placing sticky notes down. Surprisingly enough, FRIDAY didn’t stop him from heading into the room.

So clearly Mr. Stark wasn’t in there. 

When Peter entered he instantly saw the sticky notes on the monitors. The ones that were left for Pepper and not him. He didn’t look at them as he ripped them off to take a look at all the screens. Hopefully, they weren’t messed with. None of the cameras appeared to have anything covering them up, so at least that was a plus. There wasn’t anything to see either on the fourth floor. Peter skimmed through the other monitors of the remaining floors to try and spot anything. He ended up finding Pepper on the second floor, just walking the hallways and opening a janitor's closet. 

The closets!

She had said something about Mr. Stark having a bunch of hidey-hole closets scattered around at the tower, so why wouldn’t he here? 

Silently thanking Pepper for the idea, he went back to the fourth-floor monitors. There wouldn’t be anything cameras in the closets. He knew that based off of every high school janitor closet stereotype from the movies. Using his tech genius and amateur camera skills that he learned from Ned, Peter pulled up the security footage from the past hour. There was tons of footage of him and Pepper just roaming around looking for the room he was currently in. Peter felt his face heat up as the footage of him was literally him just going in circles around the entire floor. Pretty embarrassing. 

“Let’s just move on from that, thank you...” He didn’t know how to speed up the whole monitoring process, so he just clicked a few keys on the keyboard to see what would happen. One of them ended up speeding the footage along. Peter followed it along wherever there was a person on the screen. “Oh come on camera!” 

There, right there. A split second of the footage showed Mr. Stark. It went by so fast that Peter barely caught it. He fooled around with the keyboard to try and get everything to stop but it wasn’t working.

“No! No, go back!” He pressed the P key and everything stopped. By the time that had happened, everything had gone ahead by another forty minutes. “Oh god, FRIDAY how do I back it up?”

“I’m not allowed to say.”

“Of course you can’t!” Peter rubbed his face with his hands and examined the keys again. 

The P paused the footage so maybe there was a letter pattern? The one thing that Peter knew for a fact since coming here was that Mr. Stark was pretty lazy with names for stuff, but at the same time equally clever with them. P stood for pause, so maybe another key could stand for the thing he was looking for. He pressed the F key and, surely enough, the footage went forward. F for forward, got it. Logically speaking, that should make B backward, right? Only one way to find out. The teen pressed down on the B key and the footage began to back up.

“Thank god.” Luckily it was going at a slower rate backward than it had forward. Peter paused the video right when Mr. Stark entered the frame and looked at it. “What the...” He was in the hallway! Or had been. Peter watched the footage over a few times and with each time grew more and more confused. “He’s just...vanished.” 

The footage showed him running through a hallway and disappearing in between then and the next camera frame. How did he manage that?

“Uh...Ms. Potts?” He turned on his comm in order to ask her how Mr. Stark vanished into thin air, great planning.

_“Yes, did you find him?”_

“I think I found him?”

_”You think you found him?”_

“Uh huh.” There was a pause before he continued. “I’m in the security room and I’m watching the footage. He was running in a hallway and then...poof.”

_”Poof?”_

“Poof.”

It hit him midway into his explanation that this was a real conversation he was having. 

_"Ok...Not sure how he did that.”_

“Oh come on, have some faith in me.” Peter nearly jumped on the ceiling when a different voice came into his ear. _“I’m magical like that.”_

“Mr. Stark?!”

_“Tony!”_

_"Do you think I wouldn’t have a comm in when you two are hunting me down with my tech?”_

Why would Peter even think that Mr. Stark wouldn’t try and eavesdrop on them? What a turd. 

_Great insults, Parker._

_“And Parker, you’re turning against me and working with my fiance? I’m wounded, truly I am.”_

_“Tony just come out from wherever you’re hiding already. The board isn’t going to be happy about this.”_

_“If I do that then I’ll be even more wounded. Especially if we’re talking physically.”_

_“Oh my god, can you act like an adult for five seconds?”_

_”I am though. I’m making my own decisions and that’s adult.”_

_“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”_

_"Care to be a bit more specific then?”_

Peter listened to the back and forth banter between the two with the most exasperated expression on his face--probably. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it had to be quite over the top. They were communicating in the same way as his last two brain cells. Just yelling and hoping to get a point across.

His eyes caught something below him that threw him off guard. When Peter looked down, he felt his face fall. There was a...flip phone? A flip phone, sitting on the desk of Tony Stark. Was that even legal? 

_“--how many times has this happened in the past?”_

_”It’s gone down significantly in the past two years and you know it--”_

_”That is not the point here!”_

_”Then what is?!”_

“Uh, Mr. Stark why do you have a flip phone?”

Silence.

Absolute silence.

That was not expected. From Mr. Stark, maybe, but from Pepper too? Definitely not. 

_”Did you say flip phone?”_ That was Pepper talking. Guess she recovered from it first. Peter found himself nodding despite the fact that she couldn’t see it. She must’ve known what he did because a second later she let out _“Oh my god.”_

“What--”

_”Take it and run!”_

That had not been what he was expecting. 

“Why--”

_”Just do it!”_

_“No, don’t do it! Leave it there!”_ And that was Mr. Stark. _“Do not take it and run!”_

_“Take it and run, lure him out!”_

_”Oh so it’s blackmail now huh?”_

What was happening?

Peter was confused, tremendously. Pepper wanted him to use the phone against Mr. Stark? Why would he even care about a flip phone, they were so 2008. It didn’t make any sense. Unless it was sentimental or something. Maybe it was that.

“Why do I--”

_”Peter take it. Go and throw it down a garbage disposal if it’ll get Tony to come out--”_

_”Don’t you dare.”_

_“Oh please you have the number memorized. And not because it has a five in it.”_

Seriously what the hell was happening?

“I--”

_“TAKE IT!”_

Good god, alright. 

Peter took the phone and, ran. That’s all he could do. Apparently, this would lure Mr. Stark out. Pepper said throw it down a garbage disposal, which he wasn’t sure was the smartest idea, but maybe it was ok? To be fair, he was more afraid of Ms. Potts than Mr. Stark. And he was Iron Man. 

The moment he was out of the security room the door closed and locked behind him. Unbelievable.

“Did you try and lock me in?”

_“Yes and it clearly didn’t work!”_

Ok, maybe a garbage disposal was the answer to this. 

_“I swear I will fire you, kid.”_

And he said that out loud. “I don’t even work here. And you’re the one who locked me in a closet.”

The teenager made his way out the hallway and headed towards the kitchen. He was so disposaling this and it wasn’t even funny. Considering he was on the opposite side of the floor from said disposal, well it gave Mr. Stark an opportunity. If he, you know, decided to come out. Peter was about halfway to his destination when he heard it. 

The sound of the Iron Man armor.

“What the hell!”

_”Language, young man.”_

“Did you send the Iron Man armor on me?”

_”Yeah it levels the playing field.”_

“How does it do that?!” Peter ducked behind a corner when he saw the armor come flying from the lab and back towards the security room. He was hunting for him now! 

_“More manpower.”_

Wha--

 _”It’s two against two now,”_ Pepper almost mused through the comms.

“More like two against eight hundred.”

_”Technically, the suit and I are one. That means it’s still one against two.”_

“Oh whatever, Mr. Stark.”

With the suit going back behind him, that gave him clear clearance to the kitchen. Ha, take that Iron Man. Peter came out from around the corner and basically bolted towards the kitchen. The moment he heard the Iron Man suit coming around again he dove to the ground. That thing was like a freaking watchdog! It zoomed right past him and appeared to be heading out towards the elevator. Probably to stop Pepper from doing something, as she wasn’t on the floor. 

Peter pushed himself off the ground and nearly slipped as he started running again. His socks were not getting good traction on the cold floor. It was basically tile and it was wood. The teen pulled his socks off and dropped them on the floor before he started running again. He’d pick those up later.

_”Peter I’m heading up to you.”_

“Ok, be careful. There’s a suit on the loose.”

_“You guys know I can hear you right?”_

_“Tony you’re irrelevant right now.”_

“Wow, there's some salt to that Pepper.”

_”Pepper?! She already gets first name basis?!”_

This was like a soap opera at this point. Peter, flip phone in hand, ran all the way to the kitchen without stopping. Thank the lord for super stamina because god was the compound big. He turned the corner to enter the kitchen and skidded to a halt the moment he did so. The suit was there! Right there in front of him, turned away from him, but there! How’d it get there?! 

Peter didn’t even get a chance to take a step before he was tackled from behind. He let out a yelp as he fell to the floor with none other than Mr. Stark on top of him. Because of course he’d come out for some tech.

“Mr. Stark--”

“Give me the phone!” The man was wrestling around and trying to get the phone that was in Peter’s hands. “Come on, Parker!” 

“Never!” He gripped the phone even harder as the pair rolled around on the floor. 

“I’m out now so you can give up the phone!”

“No!”

“Goddammit.”

The Iron Man suit decided to involve itself now. It came over and hovered above Peter and Mr. Stark, not quite sure what to do, but waiting until a moment arose. Peter ended up rolling on top of the mechanic and the suit grabbed his arms while Mr. Stark grabbed his legs. Neither the armor nor man were trying very hard against Peter which made it easier to get away from them. He flipped himself over the esteem red armor just in time for the elevator to open up with Pepper coming through. She looked very confused. 

Peter jumped up as she walked out of the elevator. Mr. Stark, once again, tackled him to the floor, this time almost jumping on him. The suit came forwards but soon stopped mid-flight. Probably because Pepper told FRIDAY to disable the suit, which she actually did. 

“Tony, my god.” 

The woman came running over and attempted to pull Mr. Stark off of Peter but man was he determined. She let go after a few failed attempts and went rushing over to the kitchen for, something. Peter was hoping a pan or something so she could scare Mr. Stark off of him. Because what was happening? He’s asked the question so many times today, but he really wanted to know. 

As it turns out, it wasn’t a pan. It was the fire alarm. She pulled the fire alarm!

Water came out of the sprinkles instantly and Peter let out a shriek. Mr. Stark let out an annoyed sound and stood up from the floor, yanking Peter up with him. The man turned to give Pepper a look which she just smiled slyly at him. 

“Funny, babe, real funny.” Mr. Stark didn’t look the least bit amused, but his voice sounded a little bit enlightened. 

“Hey, I don’t need you to get arrested for child abuse by tackling your intern with Iron Man armor.”

“Well he’s Spiderman.”

“That’s besides the point, honey.” Pepper turned the fire alarm off and the sprinkles instantly stopped flooding the compound. The three of them were already wet, though, with Peter and Mr. Stark being stupidly soaked because they had been laying on the floor. 

The man ran a hand through his wet hair and sighed. “Can you give me my phone now?” He asked, looking directly at Peter.

“Oh, yeah.” Peter handed the phone over to Mr. Stark, which wasn’t the slightest bit wet--thank god--and watched as the man snatched it from his hands. “I wasn’t actually gonna throw it down the dish disposal.”

“Uh huh,” Mr. Stark sputtered out, not sounding the least bit convinced.

“You’re the one who locked me in a closet.”

“You’re the one who wanted me to be bored for three hours.”

“But it’s your business--”

“WHERE’S THE FIRE?!” The elevator burst open suddenly, with an alarmed Happy carrying a flipping fire extinguisher going off the moment he was where they were at. 

Mr. Stark suddenly shoved the phone in Peter’s hands and stood in front of him to block the assault of white foam coming from the red canister. It took Happy two minutes to realize there wasn’t actually a fire, which caused him to cease his spraying. He dropped the fire extinguisher on the ground and just stood and stared, having the biggest oops face Peter had ever seen. Pepper, on the other hand, started laughing.

“Kid, please tell me the phone is still dry?” Mr. Stark asked, not even turning and giving him a glance. 

Peter looked at the phone in his hands and nodded. “Uh, yeah it’s good.”

“Good, that’s great.” Mr. Stark turned around then, and Peter felt his eyes grow wide. His entire front side was covered in white foamy goop. It was pretty hysterical, but Peter felt bad if he laughed, so he just stood there and stared, completely amazed. 

“Uh...Mr. Stark, it’s a little early to start dressing up as Santa.” 

That caused Pepper to start laughing even harder and made Happy make a beeline towards the exit. Mr. Stark, on the other hand, let out a snort before wiping off some of the foam from his face and smearing it all over Peter before the kid started laughing. 

Ned was never going to believe him when he told him what happened today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! 
> 
> Remember when I said I'd try and update once a month and it's been like three? Wow I'm great at follow through. In my defense, life has been crazy the last few months. I was in the school play and my school doesn't know how to manage time when it comes to clubs so our teacher ended up turning into like, an evil elf or something and made all the kids cry the day before our show, so that was nice. AP classes decided, hey, let's do a presentation every week and make our students suffer, and then my math teacher was like, hey, let's do a new unit every week and make my students suffer.
> 
> I've literally never hated a teacher more than my math teacher. And it sucks because he's a good person, but the most suckiest and nit picky teacher. But I digress. 
> 
> Anyways, I'm back now.
> 
> I'm so happy to be back, you guys have no idea. I've been getting some kudos and comments during my unfortunate break that has basically given me the willpower to write this chapter out whenever I would be able to. Thank you guys so much for your support on this story, it's such a blast to write. 
> 
> Don't know when I'm gonna upload next, but I'm praying to Thor himself that it's sooner than this last time. Especially since it's literally nine when I'm posting this. More plot is coming for those who want to know. I'm also gonna be planning out/outling this story or attempting to, so hopefully there will be a final show of how many chapters this thing is going to be within the next few chapters. But you know, life can happen and mess things up.
> 
> Until next time, let me know what you guys think.
> 
> Also, that Endgame trailer man. Pure beauty, pure sad.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the start of something new. 
> 
> This honestly was born from a dream I had that I thought would turn into a great story. It was originally going to be a one-shot but there is so much potential that there is no way I can stick to that. I don't know how many chapters it's gonna be, but it'll be quite the handful.
> 
> Anyways, this story is going to be taking place between Homecoming and Infinity War. I heard somewhere that it was like, six months in between or something so I'm gonna stick to that. This is basically gonna be how Tony and Peter got that father-son relationship we all know they have.
> 
> Tell me what you guys think about it.


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